


That Good Night

by Shadowscast



Series: Fragments [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the news comes that Willow's having a baby and her life is in danger, Spike and Xander rush to Sao Paulo -- and so does Buffy.  Once there, they must deal with secrets, jealousy, and a dangerous new vampire threat.</p><p>This story is the final one in the Fragments-verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is marked as 'complete,' but that's not entirely true.
> 
> I wrote most of this story in 2006, added dribs and drabs up until 2009, and then stalled completely. In 2014 I decided that if I was never going to end it properly, I should at least provide closure, so I wrote a summary of how all of the major plot points were to have been resolved. The summary took on a life of its own and became almost-but-not-quite a final chapter of the story.
> 
> If you decide to read this story, you will find that the first fourteen chapters proceed at a leisurely pace, and then there is a careening fast-forward to the end. But hey, at least there _is_ an end! (more or less)
> 
> I'm posting this story here in its imperfect final form because I think that as far as it went, it was a pretty good read, and without it the Fragments-verse would be forever incomplete.
> 
> Many thanks to Yourlibrarian for beta-reading!

Airports, Xander decided, didn't quite inhabit the same reality as the rest of the world. They were pocket dimensions—lesser hell dimensions, maybe—labyrinths filled with blank-faced desperate people, incomprehensible signage, and a pervasive stink of floor polish, stale cigarettes and sweat.

Or maybe he was just tired. That could very well be it. He hadn't really slept since 1999.

***

That last day in 1999 had been exhausting enough on its own, what with the late-night rerun of the battle with the Sisterhood of Jhe, followed by the trip out to the desert and back, Spike's asthma attack, and the ER confrontation with everyone they'd been trying to avoid in Sunnydale. By the time they'd sorted it all out, ensured the safety of the timeline and made it back to LA, Xander had been awake for going on twenty-four hours.

As soon as they'd made it back to the present, they'd taken Giles out to the desert to collect the Sisters. And okay, yeah, Xander had dozed a little in the car during that two-hour drive, but that didn't really count—not against the kind of exhaustion he was dealing with here.

Giles had arranged beforehand for passage to Australia by container ship—it was the fastest way to get three very conspicuous demons across the Pacific Ocean to the Brisbane Hellmouth. Spike and Xander had gone with him down to the port, planning to drive the car back to the hotel and collapse into bed once they'd seen him off. It had been a good plan.

They'd been literally walking into their hotel room when Xander's cell phone had rung. It had been Kennedy, with frantic news: Willow was in labor, and it was going very wrong somehow, and she was asking for Xander.

Eighteen hours later, here they were in Sao Paulo.

Specifically, here they were in the Sao Paulo international airport, standing in line for customs. The line they were in was moving at the pace of a badly crippled snail. The line to their immediate left was moving at the pace of a healthy, athletic snail, but a look at the stern security guards at the front of the room killed Xander's fleeting thought of ducking under the cordon. Xander had learned a thing or two the hard way in the past couple years, and _never mess with airport security_ was a notable example.

God, he was tired. So tired that he kept forgetting why the hell they were in Brazil—or where they were at all, for that matter, not to mention what year it was—and then he'd remember, and get scared all over again. They hadn't heard anything about Willow since that one call from Kennedy. Xander had tried Kennedy's cell as soon as the plane had landed, but she wasn't answering.

He glanced over at Spike, mostly to reassure himself that he was still okay—or, anyway, still upright. Xander was worried about _him_ , too. It had been maybe twenty-four hours, relative time, since the terrifying asthma attack that had landed him in Sunnydale General. He'd had a minor attack in Miami, too, while they were switching planes, but he'd controlled it easily with one dose from his inhaler. At that point Xander had suggested borrowing one of the airport wheelchairs. And, well, that conversation had ended when an exaggeratedly polite security guard with a Southern accent had asked them to please stop shouting at each other, as they were scaring some nearby children.

So, no wheelchairs. Check. But they'd been standing in this fucking line for forty-five minutes, and Xander was sure Spike was paler now than he'd been at the beginning, and he'd been quiet for a long time too—that was never a good sign. Xander wished there were at least someplace for him to sit. Up and down the line, some other weary travelers were resting on their own suitcases, but Spike and Xander were traveling light—just one shoulder bag each, small enough for carry-on.

The line shuffled forward about six inches, and they moved along with it. Xander thought he saw Spike start to sway and then catch himself. His face was definitely paler now, Xander decided. His lips were tinged gray, apart from the bruised corner of his mouth where Xander had punched him under the Thesulac's influence. _Fuck._

There was something wrong with Spike. It wasn't just the exhaustion of the past crazy week, or yesterday's asthma attack. He'd said something back in Sunnydale ... they'd been fighting about Faith, one of those not-really-about-what-it's-about fights, and Spike's frustration with his own body had boiled over in an angry rant. Xander had backed down from his own hurt over Spike's flirting with Faith and tried to make peace with some lame _everything'll be better in the morning_ assurances, and that was when Spike had told him that no, it wouldn't.

_I'll feel like shite in the morning,_ he'd said. _I feel like shite every morning._

They hadn't talked about it since then, but Xander had had time to think, and his thoughts were going places that scared him. Because when he thought about it, he realized that he'd been noticing changes on a subconscious level for months: Spike got tired quickly these days. He slept a lot, and lately he had permanent shadows under his eyes. It hadn't seemed like a big deal, especially in the context of the rest of the health problems that had come along with his heartbeat. Xander was used to Spike getting sick frighteningly and dramatically—incapacitating migraines, asthma attacks, pneumonia. But now that he thought about it, he realized the difference: it used to be that in between crises, Spike was _fine_. He'd attacked life with a sort of wild energy: spontaneous all-night motorcycle rides across Europe, relic hunting with Illyria across India and Nepal, dancing till 3 a.m. at whatever club was hot that week in whatever city they were in. For the last two or three months, though, not so much. Xander had gotten used to Spike being the one to say "let's stay in tonight, watch the telly"—and hey, cuddling on the couch watching the new Battlestar Galactica? Definitely of the good.

_I feel like shite every morning._ He'd been watching Spike more carefully since then, and he'd noticed the way his body language changed when he thought no one was looking. Xander had come out of the shower quietly one morning in the motel room and watched Spike getting dressed—every movement slow and heavy, his jaw set tight against unspoken pain. And okay, yeah, that was after the vampire beatdown, but Xander was intimately familiar with the ginger movements of someone who was just plain bruised all over—having been a Slayer's sidekick for nine years and counting— and this was more than that.

"Luv?" Spike's quiet address and his hand on Xander's arm broke Xander out of his worried reverie. "You all right?"

"Huh?" Xander blinked, disoriented by the question. "I'm—sure, why?" He followed Spike's gaze to the line in front of them—oh. The line had moved again, leaving a good four feet between Xander and Spike and the person ahead of them. Xander shrugged and took a couple steps forward. "I guess I zoned."

Spike frowned. "You look like you're about to fall over."

Xander almost laughed. "I was thinking the same thing about you," he said, trying to make his tone light.

"At least I slept on the plane." Spike touched the side of Xander's face, just briefly. They never showed much physical affection in places like this where they weren't sure what the reaction would be. "We'll get to her soon, don't worry."

_Willow._ Xander actually shivered, remembering again. His fear for her was sharper, more acute than his worry for Spike—so terrifying that his brain kept shying away from it, but it had kept him awake in a miserable exhausted fugue state through the entire eighteen hours of international travel. "I know," he said, even though he didn't know anything at all. "If we ever get out of this airport. _Fuck._ " He took another frustrated look at the faster-moving line to their left, and his gaze settled blankly for a moment on a petite blond woman in a short blue dress. It took him a good three, four seconds to register that he knew her, and then his mouth worked before his brain did. "Buffy!"

She looked up sharply, and so did Spike. Buffy's eyes widened at the sight of him, and she called out "Xander!" with a sort of desperate joy.

"Fucking hell," Spike whispered, and backed up a step to put Xander more thoroughly between himself and Buffy.

Before Xander had any time at all to process the implications, Buffy was ducking under the cordon containing her line, dragging her absurdly large wheeled suitcase across the intervening linoleum and throwing her arms around Xander in a bone-crunching hug.

"Oh God, Xander," she said, "I'm so glad to see you. Have you heard anything? I tried calling Kennedy as soon as I landed, but I guess she's got her cell turned off in the hospital—"

"Same here," he said, letting his chin rest on the top of her head for a moment, holding her tight. It was the first time he'd seen her in nearly a year. "I mean, I tried, no answer."

"God, I'm scared," she said in a tiny voice, tight like she was holding herself back from the edge of crying.

"Me too, Buff. Me too."

Their hug was cut short by a frowning security guard, who tapped Buffy's shoulder and said something in gruff Spanish— _no_ , Xander reminded himself, _probably Portuguese_.

"Um, sorry?" Buffy said, turning around. "Uh, habla inglés?"

The guard shook his head impatiently, said something else—in Spanish this time, Xander was pretty sure—and gestured towards the other line.

"He says you have to go back in your own line," Spike said. From Buffy's startled expression, she hadn't noticed Spike until that moment. "Hang on," Spike added, and then addressed the guard—in Spanish? Portuguese? Xander wasn't sure. When he finished, the guard nodded, still frowning, said something quickly to Buffy that had a sound of "I'll let you off this one time," and walked away.

Buffy and Spike looked at each other warily. Spike spoke first, a quiet "Hello, Buffy."

"Spike." She crossed her arms in a protective gesture. "I can't deal with this right now. So can we just ... not?"

"Not sure what you mean, pet." Spike was using a strangely gentle tone of voice.

"I mean—" she waved her hand vaguely, indicating the space between them, "—everything. Could we just pretend for now that we're, like, old friends from high school and nothing weird's ever happened between us?"

"Okay," Spike said, sounding cautious. "We can do that."

Then there were a few moments of tense silence. The line advanced another two feet.

Xander cleared his throat. "Hey Spike," he said, a little too brightly, "I didn't know you spoke Portuguese."

"Spent a few years in Brazil, here and there," Spike said, his eyes still locked on Buffy's. "Dru loved the place."

Buffy flinched at the name of Spike's old lover. Xander wasn't sure whether Spike had been aiming for that effect, or whether he was suddenly nostalgic or just too tired to think straight. This had to be a serious head trip for both Spike and Buffy—it was their first meeting since Spike had burned up in the Hellmouth. Even for Xander, it was awkward. He and Buffy had been quietly and unofficially estranged since he'd started dating Spike. It didn't seem important now, compared to Willow, but it was still hard to figure out what to _say_ now that they'd got past the hugging.

"So, Buffy," Xander tried, giving the small talk one more shot, "did you fly straight from Rome?"

She shook her head, finally looking back to Xander. "I was in New York, remember?"

"Oh, right. How'd that go?"

She shrugged. "Made the rounds of the demon bars, knocked some heads together, got some info. Looks like we might have a problem next fall in Borneo, but Angel's on it."

Xander's shoulders tensed at the sound of Angel's name. He still wasn't over the shock of finding out that Spike and Angel had been—was _lovers_ the right word? Probably not, but trying to think of a better one was likely to break Xander's brain. Anyway, thinking about that led to remembering the rage he'd felt under the Thesulac's influence ( _yeah, blame it all on the Thesulac_ said a sarcastic little voice deep inside, and he shushed it). Spike's bruised mouth was enough of a reminder of that; Xander _really_ didn't want to get into a conversation about what Angel was up to these days.

Lacking any encouragement from Xander, Buffy lapsed back into silence. Xander was too fucking tired to try the conversation thing again. So they all stood together, waiting, shuffling forward occasionally, with Buffy and Spike conspicuously keeping to opposite sides of Xander now and avoiding each other's eyes. The minutes crept by. The line in front of them shrank to eight people, then five.

"Xander," Spike said, suddenly, quietly. "I think I need to ... sit ..."

His face was almost white, and even as he reached a hand out towards Xander his knees sagged and his eyes fluttered shut.

" _Shit._ " Xander caught him under the shoulders and looked around urgently. "Buffy, your suitcase."

Her eyes were wide, but she saw immediately what Xander meant. She pushed her big red Samsonite suitcase right up behind Spike, and Xander lowered him down onto it. Spike wasn't quite unconscious; he crossed his arms over his knees and rested his head on them.

Buffy looked shaken. "What's going on?"

Simultaneously, the man standing behind them in line asked, in heavily accented English, "Is everything all right? Do you want me to go get help for your friend?"

"Be all right in a minute," Spike said weakly, the words muffled from being spoken into his own lap.

"Um, I think he's okay, thanks," Xander said, speaking to the man behind them first. He kept a worried hand on the back of Spike's neck, ready to catch him again if he toppled over. His skin was clammy. "It's been a really long trip, he's just tired." Then, more quietly to Buffy, "We came here straight from dealing with that thing in Sunnydale. Didn't even have time to nap in between."

"Sunnydale," she repeated, slowly. "I heard you were—I don't know the details, though, Giles was being all tight-lippy about it. Did you really go ... _back_?"

He gave a tight nod. "All the way. It was ... intense."

Spike lifted his head and looked at Buffy. " _You_ nearly made a right mess of things, pet, but Dawn got it all sorted."

Buffy frowned, but before she could say anything the customs agent up front called out something and waved to them. The last group left in front of them had been processed.

"Right," Spike said, and made a move to push himself to his feet. Xander went to help him, but Buffy got there first. She walked with Spike to the inspection desk, subtly supporting him, leaving Xander to trail behind them with her fifty-pound suitcase.

He knew it shouldn't piss him off. Buffy was just being helpful. Hell, she was being fantastic, considering all the shit she and Spike had unresolved between them. And besides, she was a better height for Spike to lean on. So. He definitely wasn't burning with resentment and desperate jealousy.

They made it through customs with no real hassles. There was an awkward moment when Xander forgot his own birth date—which was kind of ironic considering Spike was the one who had a fake one on his passport—but the customs agent was unfazed by exhausted, confused travelers. Outside the airport they caught a cab and left it to Spike to give the driver the name of the clinic where Willow was. Then Xander blinked, and next thing he knew they were stopped and Spike was shaking his arm while Buffy paid the driver. Which was good, that she did, because all of Xander's money was in dollars and Euros.

Xander kept an eye on Spike as they all got out of the cab and headed into the clinic, but he seemed to be fine. Being the only one who spoke any Portuguese, he went to reception and got directions for them.

"She's here," he confirmed, returning to Buffy and Xander. "Third floor."

In the elevator, Spike's hand closed around Xander's and squeezed. Xander stared straight ahead at the doors until they opened again, noting in an abstract way that he felt like throwing up.

They walked out into a spacious foyer containing a nurses' station and a small waiting area. Spike headed for the duty nurse to ask about Willow, and Xander's eye drifted blankly over the room. The bench-style seats in the waiting area looked well-padded and comfortable. A red-haired guy sat on one of them with his head ducked down, fingering what looked like some kind of rosary.

It was like it had been with Buffy in the airport—it took a long, dazed moment before Xander's brain even told him the redhead looked familiar.

This time, though, it was Buffy who found her tongue first. She took a step towards the guy and said, in a tone of stunned amazement, " _Oz_? What are you doing here?"


	2. Chapter 2

Oz stood up. "You're here to see Willow. She's all right, and so's the baby. It's a girl. They're both sleeping."

"Oh God," Buffy said, and it sounded almost like a prayer. "Oh God. Oz." She ran forward and flung her arms around him. Xander, meanwhile, discovered that standing was a thing that his legs weren't really into at the moment. He sank onto a bench and rested his head on his hands. He was so relieved, so happy, he couldn't understand why all of a sudden he was crying.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then Spike sat down beside him. "You all right, luv? Red pulled through. Nurse over there says you can see her when she wakes up, maybe in an hour or two."

"I'm fine." Xander tried to smile, and wiped his sleeve across his face. "I'm great. Oz just told us. Man, I can't believe he's here!"

"Well, he would be, wouldn't he?" Spike said under his breath, which didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, but before Xander could ask him what he meant, Oz and Buffy came over to them. Buffy's eyes looked a little red, and she was sniffling, but her relief was obvious in her expression. Oz, for his part, looked like he'd just spent a long sleepless night in a hospital. His clothes and hair were rumpled and he looked about as tired as Xander felt.

"Oz. Man, is it good to see you." Xander stood up and gave Oz a guy hug with the mandatory mutual back thumping. "Seriously, what are you doing here? You vanished off the face of the earth, like, six years ago! How did you even know Willow was here?"

Oz looked mildly surprised. "Spike didn't tell you?"

"Promised Red I wouldn't, didn't I?" Spike sounded affronted.

Xander was confused, and starting to get a bit annoyed. How were Spike and _Oz_ suddenly talking over his head? They barely even knew each other. "You promised not to tell me _what_?"

Spike exchanged some kind of significant glance with Oz, and then finally turned back to Xander and said, with a definite hint of smug superiority, "Wolfman here is the daddy."

"What!?" It was Buffy who reacted first, though she was pretty much voicing Xander's thoughts exactly. "That's ... awesome! Congratulations! Oh my God, wow. Oz." She looked like she maybe needed to sit down herself. "But what about, um, Kennedy?"

"Willow and Kennedy asked me to father their child," Oz explained, all matter-of-fact like the way you'd say _Willow and Kennedy asked me to help them paint their house_.

"I can't believe Willow didn't tell any of us you were back!" Buffy said, blatantly not looking at Spike.

Oz gave a little shrug, absently fingering his string of beads. It wasn't actually a rosary, Xander noticed—there was a tassel at the bottom instead of a cross. "She wanted to wait for the right time."

"Well," Buffy forced a laugh, "I guess this is it." She glanced sideways at Xander as she spoke, like she was looking for some solidarity in the weirdness of it all.

"I'm still confused," Xander said, which was putting it mildly. "How did you find Willow in Sao Paulo?"

Oz smiled, like at a private joke. "I turned a corner and there she was." Then he stifled a yawn. "Look, I was waiting for you guys to show up so I could give you the news about Willow—the duty nurse doesn't speak English. I need to go home and get some sleep now. You can wait here; I'll let Kennedy know."

As Oz walked away, Xander turned to Spike, who was affecting a manly slouch on the bench and looking irritatingly pleased with himself. "Okay, what the hell? How were _you_ in the loop when I didn't even know there _was_ a loop?"

"Remember when Red and her Slayer came to stay with me in LA?"

"Oh." Xander thought back, trying to remember the sequence of events. It had been a crazy time and he'd been pretty messed up. "That was right after we found out she was pregnant. So she told you then?"

Spike nodded. "We had a right heart-to-heart one night in the hospital."

"Right," Buffy said, looking troubled, "You were sick. I heard about that."

Spike gave a vaguely evasive shrug. "I got better."

Oz reappeared just then. "Will's still asleep. Kennedy will come out and get you when she wakes up. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Wait," Buffy said as he started to leave. "Spike should go with you. He kinda almost passed out at the airport."

Xander saw Spike flinch at that. Some petty part of Xander was glad to see the reaction—it was the same part of him that had been jealous of Buffy helping Spike walk out of the airport in the first place. Even so, he agreed with her. He sat down quickly next to Spike and squeezed his hand. "You could use some rest," he said quietly. "I'll be okay waiting here."

"There's a spare bed," Oz offered. "It's no problem."

Spike looked rebellious for maybe half a second, then shrugged and shouldered his duffle bag. "Red didn't ask _me_ to fly half-round the world to see her. We'll catch up later." He kissed Xander good-bye and followed Oz to the elevator.

Xander turned to say something to Buffy, but her face was closed down tight and she was staring at the floor, and Xander realized that was probably about the kiss. And, well, the 'Xander and Spike are doing it now' conversation had been put off for this long; it could wait a little longer. He let his head lean against the wall and closed his eye.

***

The next thing Xander knew, Buffy was shaking him out of a deep sleep. "Xander! Willow's awake!"

Xander rubbed his eye, adjusted the patch, and ran quickly through the _Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here?_ sequence in his head. "What time is it?" he asked, because that was always a safe waking-up question.

"About noon," Kennedy said. 

She was on his blind side; he had to turn his head to see her. When he did, his neck made a crunching noise. Ow. He made a mental note to avoid sleeping in that position again, and then focused on a more important thought: Willow. "Can we see her?"

Kennedy smiled. "Absolutely."

Willow was in a private room with flowered wallpaper and lacy white curtains. The window was closed; it had started raining sometime while Xander slept. Willow lay under blue sheets, looking extraordinarily pale and tired but very, very happy. A bag of some clear liquid on an IV stand fed into her arm. Next to her bed was one of those aquarium-type things they put new babies in, with a tiny baby sleeping inside.

"Buffy, Xander!" she said. "Oh my God, I can't believe you came all this way. I'm so embarrassed!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Will," Buffy said, putting on her stern face. "Of course we came."

There were chairs by either side of the bed, and Buffy went around to claim the one on the far side. Willow squeezed her hand, and then held out a hand for Xander to do the same. "I want to hug you," she said, "but I'm still kinda, well, limp."

"We'll hug later," Xander promised.

Buffy, meanwhile, was looking at the baby. "She's so _tiny_!" she said.

Willow rolled her eyes in Kennedy's direction. "She didn't feel tiny last night."

Kennedy laughed, and came over to perch on the side of the bed. She smoothed Willow's hair. "You were amazing, babe. You were so strong."

Xander found himself staring, along with Buffy, at the tiny person in the clear plastic bassinet. It was so hard to believe that Willow was a mother now. "Have you given her a name yet?" he asked.

"We're calling her Tara," Kennedy said. "After my grandmother, and Willow's—well, you knew her Tara, didn't you?"

"Yes," Buffy said, very quietly, still looking at the baby with a soft smile. "It's a good name."

"It's also the name of a Tibetan goddess," Willow added. "So it means something to all three of us."

"Will, I can't believe you didn't tell me about Oz." Buffy looked guilty as soon as she said it, like she'd just remembered where they were and why.

Willow looked a little guilty, too—stealing-from-the-cookie-jar kind of guilty. "I guess I wanted to keep it all to myself for a while. But you were happy to see him, right?"

"Of course!" Buffy said quickly. "It was just kind of a shock. And it was weird that Spike knew."

"Oh, Spike's here too?" Willow looked around, as though she could've missed someone in the small room.

"He left with Oz," Xander explained. "He was pretty wiped out from the trip. He's looking forward to seeing you, though."

"I'd like to see him again, too," Willow said. "How's he doing?"

"He's ... okay," Xander said. He didn't want to talk about his recent worries—partly because Willow was looking so delicate that he didn't want to burden her with any of it, but also because he hadn't told anyone yet, and even though he knew it was irrational, he harbored a sort of superstitious belief that as long as he didn't say anything, nothing could really be wrong. "There are good days and bad ones."

Buffy frowned. "So today must've been a bad one, huh?" She crossed her arms, hugging herself. "I really don't want to talk about this. Not yet. There's too much—do you have any idea what it was like for me to just suddenly _see_ him like that?"

Kennedy gave Buffy a quelling look. "Could you deal with your shit later, please? Willow needs to rest. And I think you're going to wake the baby."

"Shhh, sweetie, be nice." Willow patted Kennedy's hand.

"No, she's right. I'm sorry, Will," Buffy said. "I'm just tired and cranky. I shouldn't have said anything."

"You both must be exhausted," Willow said, and it kind of made Xander's throat feel tight to hear her sounding concerned about them like that when she was the one who'd just been through a hellish childbirth. _That's my Willow._ "You should take a cab back to the house, get some sleep. I guess Spike will be on the spare bed, so Xander can share with him, and Buffy—will you be okay with the couch? It's a really comfy couch, all long and soft and nice for sleeping on."

"The couch is fine." Buffy yawned. "The _floor_ would be fine at this point."

"I think Oz took Spike back to _his_ place, though," Xander said. "So, uh, I guess I'll go there too." Talking about Spike around Buffy had a walking-on-eggshells feel to it, but he needed to make sure he ended up where Spike was. Anyway, the two of them staying in a different place from Buffy would probably be a good idea.

Willow and Kennedy both looked confused for a second, and then Kennedy clarified, "Oz lives with us."

"He has his own room," Willow added quickly.

"Oh, okay." Xander shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to look at Buffy. "It'll be a great big sleepover, then. Like the last months in Sunnydale. Fun." He wondered if there were any cheap hotels nearby.

There was a knock at the door, and a woman in pink scrubs walked in. She smiled and said something in Portuguese.

"The nurse is here to help Willow try breast-feeding," Kennedy explained.

"Yeah, okay, that's our cue to go." Xander stood up.

Buffy's eyes had gone wide at the idea of breast-feeding, and she looked intrigued, but she must've also got the sense that Kennedy, at least, wanted some privacy. "We'll see you again soon," she promised Willow.

Kennedy took them down to the entrance. She helped them get a cab and gave directions to the driver, then ran back into the clinic, ducking her head against the pouring rain.

Buffy stared out her window, away from Xander, and he guessed she didn't want to talk just now. He leaned his head against his own window and watched the unfamiliar streets slide by. The glass was foggy from the humidity, and it gave a diffuse, dreamlike air to the scenery. The houses in this neighborhood were tall and close together, each with its own high stone wall in front with lush treetops peeking over. The rain dripped from the leaves of the trees and puddled in the gutter. Every once in a while the cab went through a pothole with a splash. The regular pulse of the windshield wipers was a soothing sound, and Xander was starting to drift off to sleep again when Buffy abruptly said "I didn't know he'd be so different."

"Huh?" Xander blinked, drew the shreds of his consciousness back together, and tried to focus on her. "You mean Spike? Well, he dyed his hair brown for going back to Sunnydale. And I guess you've never seen him with glasses before."

She frowned. "Right, there's all that, but I mean ..." She hesitated. The wipers went _swish, swish_. "What's wrong with him?"

Xander felt a stab of unreasonable fear. He'd been asking himself that same question, but it was different hearing it out loud. Besides, he really wasn't enjoying talking about Spike with Buffy. "What do you mean?" he asked, playing it dumb.

Buffy hunched her shoulders. "Xander, he _fainted_ at the airport."

"Oh. Right." Yeah, that would've been a bit shocking for her, wouldn't it? "It's been a _really_ hard week," he said. "I mean, we had to fight this fledge in Sunnydale, and Spike kinda took the worst of it. And he had this one really bad asthma attack, ended up in the hospital ... that was just a couple days ago. Maybe one day. I'm having trouble keeping track."

"He has asthma? I didn't know ..." She fiddled with the strap of her purse, looking sad and lost. "I guess in my head he was still a vampire. I didn't even recognize him when I saw him standing by you. Not till he spoke."

Xander cast a nervous glance at the cab driver, but he didn't react to the vampire comment—hopefully that meant he didn't speak English. Or just wasn't listening. "He's not so different, really. He's still Spike."

Buffy gave a sharp, unfunny laugh. "Whatever that means."

"Buffy, is this going to be a problem for you? Me and Spike being together?" He didn't mean that to come out quite as curt as it did. "Because we're here to see Willow, but we can stay in a hotel or something if—"

"No," she cut him off. "You don't have to do that. I mean, we've been avoiding each other long enough. We should deal with this."

They looked at each other in heavy silence. _Swish, swish._ Xander knew she was right, they had to deal with it, but he didn't even know where to start.

And then the cab pulled up in front of a pale yellow house with a red tile roof, and the driver said something and pointed at the meter. Buffy pulled some bills out of her purse and paid for their ride while Xander went around to the trunk.

With the fare settled and the luggage unloaded, the cab drove away. Xander and Buffy hesitated together in front of the locked gate. "We _do_ need to talk," Buffy said, looking up at Xander and shielding her eyes from the rain. "It'd probably be smart to sleep first, wouldn't it?"

"Hell yeah." And then, on impulse, he reached over and pulled her into a hug. "I know stuff's complicated, Buff, but I really did miss you."

"Me too," she murmured, hugging him back.

Buffy rang the doorbell at the side of the front gate, and a moment later a dark-haired woman emerged from the house, holding a black umbrella. She looked about their age, and she wore dark slacks and a white peasant blouse. She walked towards them and called out something in Portuguese. Xander was afraid for a moment that they had the wrong house, but when Buffy said "Is this Willow and Kennedy's house?" the woman nodded, unlocked the gate, and ushered them in. "You are Buffy and Xander?" she said in heavily accented English. "Oz say to me that you are coming."

They found themselves in an airy, open living room with a brown tile floor, white plaster walls, and the promised comfortable-looking couch grouped with a couple easy chairs around a coffee table. Oz, looking rumpled and sleepy, emerged from a doorway at the other side of the room. "Hey guys," he said. "Did you get to see Willow?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. "She looks pretty good. Tara is beautiful."

"Yeah." Oz smiled. "Okay, you'll want to sleep now, right? Elena, could you get some sheets for the couch?"

Elena nodded and went off in the direction Oz had come from.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Buffy asked.

"No, she's our housekeeper," Oz said. Xander wondered momentarily if he was joking, but then realized housekeepers probably weren't such a big deal here as in, say, California.

Plus, Kennedy _was_ rich.

So Elena got Buffy set up to sleep on the couch, and Oz showed Xander to the spare bedroom where Spike lay curled up asleep on the bed. It was a double, and Spike was right in the middle of it, so after Xander kicked off his shoes and peeled off his wet clothes, he nudged Spike to make him roll over and give Xander some room.

"Hey luv," Spike murmured sleepily. "How's Red?"

"She's good." Xander slid under the covers and wrapped his arms around Spike, who was nice and warm. "They named the baby Tara."

"Kennedy was all right with that?" Spike nuzzled his face against Xander's neck. "Not threatened by the dead ex?"

"I guess Tara was Kennedy's grandmother's name, too." Xander kissed Spike's cheek. "Sorry I woke you up."

"Goin' back to sleep now," Spike mumbled, already halfway there. "Like feelin' your arms around me."

Already, Xander felt like he was sinking into the mattress—the exhaustion of the past few days swept through him like a welcome tidal wave. He pushed his worries about Spike away into the _deal with later_ part of his brain, along with the questions he didn't really want to ask Spike about his history with Angel or his feelings for Buffy. "I love you," he whispered.

Spike kissed Xander's collarbone and smiled without opening his eyes. "Love you too."


	3. Chapter 3

News, _Friends_ dubbed into Portuguese, news, talk show. There was nothing worth watching on the fucking telly. Spike sighed and kept on flipping. There was a DVD collection on a bookshelf across the room, but it seemed like too much effort to get up and look it over. The couch was nice and soft, and he was tired.

'Course, that was nothing new. He was always so bloody tired these days. He tried to keep up appearances when anyone was around, but he was on his own for the moment, so he slouched low and kept up his listless flicking. Home renovation show. _CSI: Miami_ with crap dubbing. Some tosser making a salad. Shampoo commercial.

When he got back around to the first news program they were just switching to sports, so he stopped there. He couldn't understand most of the anchor's fast-paced Portuguese, but the video clips were enough to keep his interest.

Everyone else was back at the clinic visiting with Willow and the baby. Spike had begged off, saying he was still knackered from traveling. Which was true, as far as it went—but he hadn't mentioned to Xander that he'd woken up this morning with a sore throat. By now he was shivery and aching and he knew he was getting ill, which was a fucking nuisance. For about the thousandth time, he wondered why Angel had thought turning human would be such a special treat. 

Just then, the doorbell rang. So much for his private time. Spike peeled himself off the couch and went out to see who was at the front gate. He didn't bother to put anything on his bare feet; the night was warm, and the stone path from the door to the gate was swept clean and smooth.

Buffy stood waiting with her fingers threaded through the gate's iron grille-work. She backed off to let him open it, and he saw that she was alone.

He wished he'd put his boots on. And yeah, that was an absurd thought, but it was the first thing that hit him when he saw her. He felt strange and vulnerable suddenly in front of her. He was wearing his glasses and his hair was a mess and he had one of Xander's old t-shirts on, and it felt worse than being naked. He wanted his Docs and his punk hair and his duster to pull around him like armor.

He turned around quickly, avoiding meeting her eyes, and started back toward the house. "Where are all the others?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Xander and Oz went to buy some last-minute baby stuff. It looks like Will's going to bring Tara home tomorrow." Buffy sounded tense. Not to be self-centered or anything, but Spike was pretty sure that was about being alone with him.

"You came back early?" 

She nodded, a tight, jerky motion that betrayed the turmoil she kept out of her words. "Kennedy's staying with Willow tonight. I figured I'd go out and get a little patrolling in while everyone's busy. Kennedy's been pretty distracted lately, so I offered to pick up the slack." She hesitated a moment, then spoke quickly as though she wanted to get the words out before she thought better of them. "I hoped you'd come along."

"Oh." Just like old times? A bit of fighting, a bit of talking? Only it wasn't so easy, not anymore. "Buffy ..." He hated having to say this. To her, especially. He hunched his shoulders and forced himself. "I'm not strong like I used to be. Can't really do the patrol thing these days."

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide and she started talking fast, backpedalling and reassuring. "No! No, I mean, I don't expect you to kill anything. I'll be all with the slaying, and you'll be all with the ... the standing safely off to one side."

He covered up his wince with a scathing look. They were back inside now, and he reclaimed his place on the couch. "Well, I can see how I'm crucial to your battle plan, but if you don't mind, I think they're showing _The Mummy_ on channel 28 at seven." He picked up the remote and started flicking, hoping that would drive her away.

He wasn't even sure, himself, why he was being such a prick to Buffy. He _knew_ they had to talk, he _wanted_ to talk with her. Only, he was so fucking tired, and the _why didn't you tell me you weren't dead?_ conversation was going to be so bloody hard. And he didn't want to have to tell her again that he couldn't go on patrol with her.

She planted herself between him and the telly, arms crossed. "Spike, don't act like—" She visibly bit back whatever she'd been about to say, and tried again in a more reasonable tone. "I do need you along, okay? I need you to translate."

"What, so the local vamps won't miss out on the pleasure of your slay-and-quip routine?" He gave up trying to see around her and just rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, Slayer, your stake's a good sight pointier than your wit. Anyway, to be honest, my Portuguese is pretty much limited to asking directions and ordering beer."

Buffy smiled a little—a muted version of her ' _ha, I gotcha_!' expression. "Good thing that's exactly what I need you to do."

"We're going to a pub?" He perked up a bit despite himself.

She dismissed that idea with a delicate snort. "I meant the asking for directions. Look, Elena told Kennedy a couple days ago that there's been rumors of street kids disappearing in some slums near here—like, more than usual. And a few have shown up dead with neck wounds. The police said it was stray dogs, and, well, it doesn't sound like they care enough to do anything about it."

"They wouldn't." The slums of Brazil's cities had always made for easy hunting when he was here with Dru. It was one of the things she'd loved most about the country—along with Carnival and the bright-feathered birds Spike would steal for her from street vendors.

The favelas at night were truly dark—no electricity, no street lights. Dru would glide along the refuse-strewn streets, humming quietly to herself, peeking into the blackest corners. Spike would follow a few steps behind her, ostensibly on the lookout for danger but mostly just enjoying watching his dark princess at work. She would find an alley or a doorway with one or two ragged children curled up asleep. She'd crouch over them like a loving mother and brush the cheek of one to wake it up. The child would startle in the first moment, maybe even cry out—these were children who lived in constant fear, after all—but after a look into the deeper black of Dru's eyes and a few soothing words of nonsense, the child would stand up of its own free will and take Dru's hand and follow her a little way off. Sometimes the child would whimper when she first sank her fangs in, but that never lasted long.

It was always best to move on quickly—never give the humans a chance to put together the pattern of mysterious deaths. He'd learned that back in the old days with Angelus, and he'd followed the simple rule to keep himself and Dru safe for nearly a century. Spike remembered, now, a time when he and Dru had stayed in one small area of Sao Paulo for more than a week, leaving behind bodies every night. Dru had been in a strange, petulant mood, refusing to move on to another city or even another neighborhood, and Spike, though it made him edgy, let her have her way. Then one night as they were hunting in the favela they turned a corner and nearly bumped into three uniformed police. Spike grabbed Dru's wrist and pulled her into a doorway, and they stood very still. Not that the two of them couldn't kill three coppers easily enough, but then for sure they'd have to pick up sticks and flee the city—maybe even the country if anyone spotted them at the deed.

And Dru had giggled quietly next to Spike's ear. "How many monsters stalk the night, my pet?"

He'd shushed her and tried to make out what the police were up to. They'd woken up a street kid who'd been sleeping wrapped in cardboard behind a couple of trash cans—a boy, from the looks of it, around ten years old, though it was hard to tell through the dirt and the distance. Another five minutes and the kid would've been Dru's supper. "Looks like they're starting to investigate us," he whispered to Dru—he couldn't think of another reason the police would want to talk to a homeless kid in the middle of the night. "Sorry, luv, but it's time to make for greener pastures again."

Dru giggled again. "Wait, and watch. Tick tock."

With a puzzled look at his dark princess, Spike had turned back to the scene playing out half a block away. The kid had his hands up, and all of a sudden he broke and tried to run. One of the police tripped him. All three had their night sticks out. They started beating the kid. He screamed and curled up into a ball, and one of the police kicked him. The others followed suit, kicking and beating, until the kid didn't move anymore. Then the police walked away, jostling each other like they were high after winning a football match.

Dru and Spike laughed about it until their sides hurt and they could barely stand up. Then they went and drained the kid. They stayed in Sao Paulo for another month.

Buffy snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Earth to Spike? I _said_ , will you come with me now?"

"Right. Yeah, I'm in. Just let me get dressed." He got up, pushed past Buffy, and made quickly for the bathroom. He slammed the door shut, fell to his knees in front of the toilet, and threw up.

"Spike?" Buffy knocked on the bathroom door. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

He couldn't reply because his stomach was still busy turning itself inside out. He heard the door click open and he realized he hadn't locked it—bugger. He felt Buffy's hand on his back, and he _really_ didn't want her here, seeing him like this.

When he finished puking, she handed him a glass of water. The hand he reached out to take it was shaking so hard that she kept hold of it and helped him rinse out his mouth. After that he didn't resist when she sat him on the edge of the bathtub and got a warm washcloth to wipe off his face. He held his glasses in his clenched fist and closed his eyes and felt like crying, but he would _not_ do that in front of Buffy.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. "I shouldn't have asked you to come on patrol—I mean, I knew you'd been sick and everything, I just didn't think—"

He opened his eyes and grabbed her arm to stop her from dabbing at his face again. "I'm coming with you. I might not have superpowers anymore, but I'm not a fucking invalid."

"Umm..." Buffy frowned. "I never said that. Just, if you're too sick to patrol tonight, no biggie. I'll figure things out on my own."

"It's not that. I just had a—a flashback. Thinking about hunting street kids here with Dru, years ago. It all came back at once, right down to the taste of the blood."

"Oh." Buffy backed off, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Yeah, I guess that would suck."

"So I'm coming with you."

This time, she didn't argue.

It took him about ten minutes to get properly dressed, including a few minutes sitting on the bed with his head in his hands just trying to pull himself together. The flashback had been intense, and he didn't want Buffy to see how hard it was for him to shake it off.

It reminded him of when he'd first got the soul—the agonizing days spent on the floor of an African cave while his mind broke itself over and over, trying to reconcile a hundred twenty years of murder and mayhem with his newly reinserted conscience. Later, though, when he'd walked among humans he'd always felt the demon part of him coiled and ready to attack, and that had helped him cope; of _course_ he'd killed people, he was a fucking _vampire_. You didn't see the lions getting all angsty about killing the zebras out on the veldt, did you? It was the natural order of things. The circle of bloody life. Couldn't see why the poofter had spent a century brooding about it.

Since the Shanshu, it'd been different. The demon was gone. There was no part of him that remembered what it meant to think of humans as prey. When the memories of hunting and killing came flooding back, there was no way to make sense of them.

Angel kept saying the Shanshu meant some kind of fresh start, but Spike really didn't see how that could be when every brutal detail of his past insisted on getting play time in his brain. They came up mostly in his dreams, but sometimes, like now, they took over his waking mind.

Xander understood better than anyone else, and Spike wished he were here right now. Not to _talk_ about it—sod that—but at least to have some idea what was going on in Spike's head and maybe provide a distraction. A good fuck went a long way in pushing the unbearable bits back down.

But Xander wasn't here, and besides there were street kids getting killed out there and Buffy needed his help. He pulled on his black jeans and t-shirt, laced his boots, and ran a little gel through his hair. He might feel like shite, but that was no reason to look like it.

"Ready?" Buffy asked when he came out of the room. She'd changed her own clothes for patrolling, switching her pastel sundress for a pair of brown cargoes and a chocolate-colored fitted tee, with a stake just visible tucked into her belt at the small of her back. She was giving him a concerned look, so he concentrated on moving like he had when he was a vampire; a little menace, a little swagger.

"Let's go, pet," he said, tilting his head towards the door. "Just like old times."


	4. Chapter 4

The air outside was heavy with humidity. It was just turning dusk, but with the thick cloud cover hiding the sunset, it was already almost dark.

"Going to rain," Spike commented as Buffy shut the gate behind them.

"You think?" Buffy gave the sky a doubtful look. "I mean, sometimes it's all cloudy and then it goes away."

Spike shrugged. "Just has that feel to it."

"I wouldn't know, I guess. SoCal girl here." She shook her head. "God, I can't believe we're talking about the weather." She started walking.

"Just making conversation." He stuck his thumbs in his pockets and fell into step beside her. "Ball's in your court."

"Okay. Okay, let's do this. Why did you hide from me?" Her hands balled into fists when she asked the question.

"You know the story, right? I was a ghost at first. Couldn't pick up a phone, couldn't leave L.A."

"I know. For a few months. But then you re—uh, rematerialized or whatever."

"Yeah. And my first thought was to go to you." Well, actually his first thought had been to shag Harmony, but that's just because she'd been right there and he hadn't even been able to wank himself off in six months and—the point was, Buffy didn't need to know that part. "But there was some trouble in L.A., screaming telephones and bleeding eyeballs and such like, and by the time it was all over I'd had time to think."

"And what did you think, exactly?" She sounded brittle and she didn't look at him when she spoke. "That I'd be better off without you? Because I've heard that one before, and it really just kind of pisses me off."

Spike didn't answer right away. He wasn't quite sure how to. He'd rehearsed this conversation a dozen times in his head, but the imaginary conversations, frankly, had usually ended up with Buffy either sobbing or beating him to a pulp.

He knew he wasn't going to get away with the flippant half-truth he'd given Harmony back in L.A., but at least it was a starting place. "Last time you'd seen me, I was in the middle of dying to save the world," he said. "What do you say after that? 'Hello, I'm fine, how are you, how's the weather?' Bit anticlimactic, innit?"

"An anticlimax is what you get when you survive an apocalypse," Buffy said. "I like anticlimaxes." She kicked a stone and it went skittering away down the sidewalk in front of them.

"All right." He stopped walking. "Buffy, you told me you loved me. You said it when I was dying. I wanted it to be true, and maybe you did too in that moment, and it was a beautiful, poetic good-bye, but that's what it was. Good-bye. I knew that if I came back into your life after that, we'd both have to face the fact that it _wasn't_ true. I didn't want to face that."

"Well, you're an idiot. Because I did mean it. If you'd come to Rome last year—" She cut herself off, hugging her arms tight around herself. "I can't even say it. It's never going to happen now. It doesn't matter. What matters is, I thought you were _dead_. You know what that feels like, Spike. You felt it when I was dead. Every day when I woke up, there was that pain deep inside me, and it was there all day, in everything I did and said, and it was still there when I went to bed at night. And the whole time, you were running around with Angel, solving crimes, getting drunk, whatever, I don't care—getting killed _again_ —" her voice broke, and she put her hand over her mouth, and Spike almost stepped forward to—he wasn't sure what, touch her, hug her, _something_ —but she stopped him with a fierce look. "And you miraculously come back to life _again_ , and you _still_ don't tell me. I finally have to find out via the ... the fucking rumor mill that you're alive in L.A. and working on some case with Giles and Xander. It was nearly two years, Spike, two _years_ I walked around carrying the pain of your death. How could you do that to me?"

She had a point, and he knew it, but something about her being angry at him just made him angry at _her_. "Well, maybe I would've believed you if you'd said something about it before the actual _moment_ of my fiery death."

Her eyes flicked wide in momentary shock, then narrowed. "Don't you dare try to turn this around and make it about what _I_ did wrong. You know exactly why I couldn't let myself love you that year."

Spike, wincing, looked away. The heat of anger dissolved as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind nothing but shame and weariness. "Yeah, well, and that was a good reason for me to stay away, wasn't it? When I came back to Sunnydale—to you—after the soul, I was bugfucking crazy. Didn't have that excuse anymore when I got my molecules back in L.A.. Buffy, it wasn't right for me to go back to you after what I did."

"Almost did," she corrected him quietly. She started walking again, slower than before, making sure with a glance that he was coming along. "Okay. Maybe I sort of understand why you didn't want to see me. I really _don't_ get why you told Andrew not to even tell me you were alive. And I'm still mad at you."

He nodded, watching the cracks on the pavement as he walked. "That's fair." He had his thumbs tucked in his pockets again, and it was one of those moments when he really wished he could still smoke.

They walked a little while without talking, and Spike tried to figure out how things stood between them now. They hadn't _resolved_ anything, exactly ... but he was pretty sure at least that they could be in the same room now without the tension in the air making the hairs on his arms stand up.

They turned a corner and made a quick transition from the quiet, tree-lined streets of Willow's immediate neighborhood to a bustling commercial area. The shops were mostly closed for the evening but the street was dotted with food stands where workers grabbing a bite to eat on the way home milled around, laughing and chatting. People spilled out into the street, forcing cars to move slowly or veer around them. A dance club, nearly empty this early in the evening, blasted American pop music out of its wide open front doors.

Buffy pulled a piece of paper out of her back pocket and unfolded it as she walked. It had a crude map scribbled on it in blue ink. "Elena drew this for me," she explained. "We're about two miles from the neighborhood where the kids are disappearing."

Two miles—about half an hour's walk. Spike tried not to think about how tired he already was. "So, what's the plan when we get there? Did she give you anything more specific? Address of the local demon bar, maybe?"

"That's where you come in. I figured you could, you know ... ask around."

Spike snorted. "Ask around? Two gringos walk into a favela, start asking about missing kids? Great plan. I'm sure the locals will come flocking to us."

"Do you have a better idea?"

He didn't answer—he was distracted by a glimpse of someone in the crowd around the food stand across the street. "Buffy, wait." Hair tumbling in dark ringlets down to china-white shoulders, a red velvet dress. The woman's back was turned to him, but his gut was twisting in recognition. And then she turned around. Their eyes met. She smiled like she wasn't even surprised.

Spike stumbled a step backwards. "Buffy!" he choked out. "Dru's here."

"What?!" Buffy's head snapped around, and she was already reaching for her stake. "Where?" At the same moment a bus roared by, cutting off Spike's view of the opposite side of the street.

"In front of the lunch counter." The bus pulled away; there were dozens of people milling about over there, but none of them was Dru. "Bloody hell, she was there a second ago!" He darted out into the street, leaving the motorists to honk at him and swerve and shout Portuguese obscenities. He reached the place where Dru had been. People stared at him, but he paid them no heed, looking around frantically to see where she could've gone. No open doorways close by. An alley a few steps away in one direction; in the other direction, a six foot concrete wall.

Buffy caught up to him, having taken a slightly less suicidal route across the street. "Did you see which way she went?"

"No idea—traffic cut me off and she was gone." He pointed out the wall; Buffy could jump it more easily than he could. "You check over there, I'll try the alley."

The alley stank of decaying food. Dumpsters loomed giant in the darkness, perfect cover for Dru if she'd come this way, if she wanted to surprise him. It occurred to him that it was insane to chase her down without backup, but lacking a handy Slayer action group the best he could do was break a jagged slat off a wooden crate and hold it ready. "Dru?" he called out softly. There was no point trying to sneak up on her; she'd hear his frantic heartbeat, if nothing else. "Drusilla?"

Something rustled behind one of the dumpsters. "Drusilla?" Spike repeated softly, carefully advancing.

Someone spoke. Spike couldn't make out the words. It was a male voice, rough and slurred. Definitely not Dru. Spike felt a confusing mix of relief and disappointment. He went a little farther in and saw an old man slouched with his back against the far side of the dumpster, clutching an oversized beer bottle.

The man stared at him, overtly hostile but apparently not willing to do anything about it. Spike cobbled together a question in Portuguese: "<Did a woman come by here?>"

"<A woman?>" The old man let out a wheezing, unfriendly laugh. Spike had to concentrate hard to understand what he said. "<You looking for a whore, gringo? I'll find you one. Twenty dollars.>"

Spike grabbed his wallet and pulled out an American five. "<Here. Just tell me, did a woman come by here a few seconds ago?>"

The man reached up a blackened hand to take the bill. He grinned, apparently warming up to Spike now that there was money involved. "<No woman's ever come through here. Sure you don't want me to find you one?>"

***

He got back out onto the street just in time to see Buffy climb back over the wall he'd pointed out to her. She walked towards Spike, frowning.

"Did you find her?" Spike managed to ask, not sure what answer he was hoping for.

"No." Buffy looked up and down the street. "She could be anywhere by now. I think we should go back to the original plan—see if we can find out what's been taking children."

"Children," Spike repeated. "Dru always was fond of children."

"And by fond you mean ... oh." Buffy shuddered. "We're going to find her, Spike. We're going to stop her." 

"Yeah. I'll, ah," he eyed his broken box slat, "hang onto this."

Buffy gave it a dubious look. "Maybe we can find you something better along the way. A broom handle or something." She started walking. "Hey, Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"I know things got kind of weird and bad between us...."

He raised his eyebrow. " _Got_ weird and bad?" 

"Well, okay, things started out bad and got weirder and _stayed_ bad, mostly, but there were days when I was really glad to have you at my back." She glanced at him sideways and then away, quickly, before he could catch her eye. She fixed her gaze hard on some distant point, and fiddled her stake between her fingers the way she did sometimes when she was trying to work through something difficult. "There were some days I only made it _through_ because I knew you had my back. And I never really said thanks. And then you died, and I couldn't. But here you are, so ..." She looked at him for real this time, and managed a smile. "It's good to have you at my side again, Spike. I know a lot of things have changed, but it's still good to be out here like this, with you."

 _A lot has changed? That's a bit of a bloody understatement._ He almost wanted to say something really stupid and crass just to get her pissed at him again. It would be easier to deal with her simmering anger than this—her looking at him like he was the _old_ him, the Spike who could pull on his duster and bring down the bad guys in a flurry of fists and fangs. The Spike who was desperately in love with her.

She was still looking at him, and he had to say something. He cleared his throat. "It's good, yeah. But you know it won't ever be like it was before."

She nodded slightly. "I know. I'm just trying to say ... I'm glad you're alive."


	5. Chapter 5

Buffy came back towards Spike, showing open hands. "I went all up and down the street, and I didn't find her. Spike ... are you _sure_ you saw Drusilla?"

"Well, no," he admitted. "Was just out of the corner of my eye. Going more on that funny feeling at the back of my neck than anything—you know, that somebody's-following-me feeling?"

Buffy rubbed the back of her neck, eyeing him. "No, I mean, are you sure you saw her in the first place? Back at the lunch counter? Because this was the fourth time you've had me go running after her, and I haven't seen her _yet_."

"'Course I'm bloody sure. We were lovers for a hundred an' twenty years—I think I can recognize her across the fucking street."

"And you've never seen dead people who aren't there before."

Spike rolled his eyes. "That was the soddin' First Evil. You saw it yourself!"

"Okay, true," she admitted. But then she gave him a gentle look that made him uncomfortable. "You wouldn't believe how many people from Sunnydale I've seen walking down the street in Rome," she said. "It's never them, though. It's just some Italian chick with Cordelia's hair, or a short, pudgy kid who looks kind of like Jonathan."

"It was her," Spike insisted. "We looked right at each other."

"And you were just thinking about her," Buffy added quietly. "You told me—you were remembering hunting here with her."

"Yeah. I was."

"Kind of a big coincidence, isn't it?"

Spike pressed his fist against the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a minute. "Alright. I see your point. It's a pretty big coincidence. But I _did_ see her. And I can feel her following us."

"Feel her how? I mean, you're an ordinary human now, right? No extra senses?" 

"Well ... yeah." He sighed. "I know how this sounds, Buffy. But I saw her. She's here."

"Okay. We keep going. I'll keep an eye out. But no more wild geese. I'm not going running after her again until I see her _myself_."

***

At least by the time they'd reached the slum where they were supposed to investigate the missing children, he'd come up with something resembling a plan for how to approach people in the favela with questions about street kids disappearing. He claimed that he and Buffy were from Amnesty International; it was a cover he'd used before, in Nepal with Xander and Illyria. It meant he could reasonably ask exactly the right questions: have homeless children disappeared near here? Have there been bodies? Do you believe it's wild dogs?

First Spike talked to a couple of women who were sitting on a porch shelling peas. They were friendly to him, but they didn't know anything. Neither did the man who was shuffling along the street, picking up garbage and putting it in a bulging plastic sack. Neither did the young couple who walked quickly away from him and Buffy after they spoke, holding hands and giggling.

"How about them?" Buffy suggested, pointing out a small group of teenage boys who sat on the steps of a roughly-constructed house, smoking.

Spike wanted to give up and go home, actually. He still had a feeling that Dru was tracking them, but he was starting to doubt his own instincts. And even if she was around, he was starting to realize he was in no shape to face her. He was aching all over, his throat hurt, and he was getting a headache. But he wasn't about to say any of that to Buffy, so he just stood a little straighter and sized up the group. "You hang back here; I think they'll talk to me easier without a bird on my arm."

The boys ignored him until he got close, and then got curious. Spike gave his little speech in halting Portuguese, and out of the babble of responses he managed to pick out a few things: they _had_ heard of kids disappearing. They hadn't heard of any bodies being found, but one of the boys was sure that the disappearances had something to do with the warehouse district a few blocks to the north. Spike wasn't sure whether the boy was telling him that the kids vanished in the warehouse district or whether the kids who'd disappeared had been seen there afterwards, but at least it was some kind of lead.

He went back to Buffy and reported what he'd learned, as best as he could for coughing.

"Are you all right?" she asked, looking a little worried, when he stopped talking entirely and leaned against a wall.

He wanted to reassure her but for a few seconds he couldn't stop coughing. Between the secondhand smoke and the fucking cold he was coming down with, his lungs were thoroughly irritated. He really hoped he wasn't going to have a bloody asthma attack; his inhaler was sitting in his coat pocket back at Willow and Kennedy's house.

Finally he got in a few good breaths and felt pretty sure he was going to be all right. It left him a little dizzy, so he kept his hand and forehead pressed against the concrete wall as he said, "Don't worry, 's just the smoke gets to me sometimes."

Buffy gave a sort of nervous laugh. "That's kinda ironic, huh?"

"Yeah. Innit." He pushed himself off the wall and tried not to look like he felt like falling over. "So, it's getting late. Wanna follow up the lead tomorrow?"

Buffy glanced at her dainty silver watch. "It's only a few blocks. Let's take a look now, and then I'll have a better idea where to come back to."

Biting back a groan, Spike nodded. "All right. Just a look-see."

They'd gone maybe half a block when it started to rain. One moment a few fat drops were splashing on the pavement in front of them, and the next it was chucking down.

"Hey, you were right!" Buffy said, sounding almost pleasantly surprised.

"Bloody brilliant," Spike muttered, and hunched his shoulders. "Want to head back?" he suggested. "Rain'll make your hair all flat."

She gave him a funny look, pushing a couple strands of already-sopping hair away from her eyes. "Yeah, that might matter if there was anyone in this hemisphere I wanted to look good for."

They walked on in silence. The crowded, haphazard streetscape of the favela gave way to long, dull warehouses with dead-looking windows. Spike shivered. The night had seemed warm enough before, but now that he was soaking wet he had to clench his teeth to stop them from chattering. Buffy seemed unaffected, other than impatiently pushing wet strands of hair out of her eyes now and again as she scanned their surroundings. She probably thought the rain was refreshing.

Spike suddenly, intensely wished that Xander were with him. Xander would pick up on Spike's misery—he always did, no matter how hard Spike tried to hide it. Xander would put his jacket over Spike's shoulders—and no, it wouldn't make sense for Xander to have a jacket with him on a warm night, but fantasy-Xander had one anyway. He'd make Spike wear his jacket and he'd call them a cab and he'd get them the fuck out of the rain, and they'd go home and snuggle in a warm, dry bed.

Spike pushed the fantasy away, irritated with himself for indulging in it. He was here, Xander wasn't, and there was nothing for it but to keep putting one foot in front of the other—

"You were right," Buffy said suddenly. Quiet, tight, fast. "Somebody's following us."

Spike turned to look back before she could stop him, expecting to see Drusilla coming at them like a vengeful drowned goddess. Instead, he saw two stocky men in black shirts—and one of them was pulling out a gun.

"<Don't move!>" the man shouted in Portuguese, pointing his gun at Spike. His mate pulled out a piece of his own and aimed it at Buffy with a crooked grin.

Buffy went very still, but Spike was pretty sure she was trying to decide whether she could take the two of them.

"<Put your hands up,>" said the same man who'd spoken first. "<Turn around.>"

"They want our hands in the air and our backs turned to them," Spike murmured for Buffy's benefit, lifting his hands slowly.

"<Shut up!>" the second man shouted, gesturing with his gun. He had a scar running down the right side of his face, Spike noticed, twisting his lips into a permanent grimace. Nasty-looking bloke.

Buffy managed to catch Spike's eye as they both turned around. A word formed silently on her lips: _wait_.

Wait for what? He hoped Buffy remembered he wasn't bulletproof anymore.

Speaking of which, he felt something small and hard digging into the small of his back. That'd be the gun, then.

"<Walk,>" said the man. "<Into the alley.>"

"<You can have my wallet,>" Spike said, keeping his tone nice and level. Soothing. "<Back left pocket.>" The guy didn't respond but the gun jabbed a little harder into his back.

As soon as they turned the corner into the narrow space between two buildings, it became impossible to see anything. The white-noise static of rain hitting pavement drowned out the little sounds that might have given him a clue what was going on. He knew Buffy was still beside him because when he was shoved face first against the wall, his arm brushed hers.

He wondered what she was thinking, and when she was planning to make a move. Her night vision was better than his, and better than the muggers' too, assuming they were human. She might be able to take advantage of that. The guns were a problem, though.

Spike felt his wallet being pulled out of his pocket, and a rough hand patting him down to see if he had anything else. If all the bastards wanted was money, it'd be best to just let them have it without a fight. He hoped Buffy'd thought of that.

The rain had plastered his hair to his head, his shirt to his back. It was running into his eyes, stinging a little. Impossible to tell what was happening. He couldn't feel Buffy anymore, but he could still feel the muzzle of the gun.

And then things happened fast. The gun pulled away. He was knocked to the side—Buffy, it was Buffy who knocked him down—and there were shouts and a crash like a garbage can going over. And shots. Three, four, five in quick succession, and the last one was accompanied by a slash of bright pain on the outside of his arm. "Aaaugh!"

"Spike?" Buffy's voice was full of fear. There weren't any more shots, and he could hear footsteps running away. "Spike, oh God, are you okay?"

He clasped his other hand over the wound. It wasn't bad; the bullet had barely nicked him. "I'm fine. You?"

"Be better when I catch these guys."

"No—" he started to protest, but she was already gone, the daft bint. There was enough light at the mouth of the alley that he could just see her silhouette leaving. Immediately there was a staccato of gunfire and she was back, pressed against the wall.

"Okay, bad idea," she admitted. "Got anything back there that'd do for a shield?"

"Bloody hell Slayer, if they're running away just let them go."

"They're the bad guys, Spike. I catch the bad guys." Her voice had an edge of frustration and fear.

"Slayer power's not much good against guns," he pointed out. He could understand her need for closure here, but that didn't mean he was going to let her run out and get herself killed. "Besides, what would you do with them if you caught them? We've no fucking clue where the nearest police station is."

"But ... dammit, you're right." She kicked the wall—not hard, just enough to show what she thought of the situation. "That doesn't mean I have to like it." Hating it or not, she waited a good few seconds before she took a careful look out around the corner. "Okay, they're gone."

Spike managed to get to his feet and follow Buffy back out onto the street. A sodium lamp over a doorway about thirty feet away gave enough light to see by, barely.

"What's wrong with your arm?" Buffy asked.

"Got shot."

"What?! You said you were fine!"

"I _am_ fine. It's just a graze."

"Oh my God, Spike, you are such an idiot."

He didn't think he deserved that angry tone from her. " _I'm_ an idiot? Whose bloody brilliant idea was it to go wandering around the favelas at night, then?"

Her response was to grab him by the wrist of his uninjured arm and drag him towards the nearby light.

"Oi, watch it!" he protested. "You're hurting me!"

She let go as though he'd scalded her. "I'm sorry," she said quickly in a suddenly tiny voice. "I forgot for a second ... I didn't have to be gentle when you were a vampire."

"It's all right," he said, making his voice quiet too. He flexed his wrist, trying to be subtle about it. That'd bruise for sure. "Just don't like being dragged, is all."

"Let me see your arm," she said.

They were standing under the light now. The sodium light leached the color from everything, so the place where the bullet had grazed his left bicep looked black instead of red. It was bleeding, but the heavy rain kept washing the blood away so it was nothing more than a faint stain running down his arm. It didn't hurt much, just sort of stung. "See," he said, "just a scratch."

"You'll live," Buffy agreed. "But we'd better bandage it somehow. Take off your shirt."

"Didn't think I'd ever hear you saying _that_ again, Slayer," Spike said, pulling his t-shirt up over his head.

"Don't get excited, it's just the most expendable piece of clo—holy crap, Spike, who's been using you for a punching bag?"

He got his shirt all the way off and handed the sodden thing to Buffy. She was staring at his chest, looking appalled.

He looked down at himself. In the black-and-white world of the sodium light, the yellowing bruises from the vamp attack stood out stark against his pale wet skin. "Oh. Yeah. When we went back in time, I had the authentic Sunnydale tourist experience. Got pounded on by a fledge. Xander staked it."

"Are you all right?"

He was cold, he was sick, he was brutally tired, he hurt all over, and he'd been shot. He was very fucking far from all right, and for just a moment he was tempted to tell her so. But habit won out, and he said instead "Looks worse'n it is. Can we get on with it?"

She held his t-shirt up and ripped it in half.

"Hey," he yelped, "I liked that shirt!"

"It was a plain black t-shirt, Spike," she said dryly. "You'll find another one." _Rip, rip._ "Besides, this would've ruined it anyway." She took the first piece, laid the end carefully flat over the wound, and wrapped it around his arm.

Her gentle touch was worse than the viselike grip he still felt ghosting around his right wrist. That had hurt—this _burned_. It burned with the memory of a thousand other touches. Her hand on his in the Hellmouth. Her hands throwing him against the wall when she wanted to fuck. Her wrists in _his_ hands, struggling, in a white-tiled bathroom.

"Stand _still_ ," Buffy muttered. "I have to tie this right. It's not a tourniquet, I don't want it too tight."

Spike breathed, and tried to clear his head. The tempo of the rain changed suddenly—it was finally letting up. In a few moments it was down to a drizzle, and he could see a little better. Buffy was frowning, concentrating on the knot. She had little crinkles at the top of her nose. "Done," she said, but she didn't let go. She looked up at him. "Were you scared? In the alley?"

"No," Spike said, truthfully. He understood why he should have been, but he couldn't seem to _get_ scared anymore. "Been shot plenty of times."

She looked like she didn't believe him. "You're shaking."

"I'm cold."

"I was scared," she said. Her eyes were wide and shining. She reached up, almost touched his cheek, then cupped her hand behind his head. "I was terrified."

He didn't realize until the last moment that she was going to kiss him. Her lips brushed his before he pulled away, and he could feel them. Burning. "Buffy!"

She jumped at his tone, the look on her face changing swiftly to something between shame and horror. "Oh my God. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—I didn't—"

"You shouldn't have, and you didn't. Nothing happened," Spike said quickly, giving her an out he was pretty sure she'd take.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, looking miserable. "It's so confusing, seeing you again."

"I know. For me, too. But I'm with Xander now, Buffy."

She looked so small, standing there all dripping wet. So lost. And he'd loved her for so long. Part of him wanted to close the distance between them again, to let the kiss happen, to accept the love she'd never, ever been ready to give him before. But that was a bad idea for almost too many reasons to count.

"Do you love him?"

"Yeah," he said, and that was reason number one. Maybe even reasons number one through ten. "I do."

"I don't really understand," she said, still all small and sad.

"You don't have to, pet. It's between Xander and me." He shivered, and sniffed. His cold was coming on with a vengeance; he was starting to feel stuffed up, and he thought he was about to sneeze. Xander was _not_ going to be happy with him for going out like this. " _ah...Hachoo!_ " 

"Bless you," Buffy said, her quick reply rooted in habit. Then she blinked, realizing what she'd just said. "Huh. You sneezed. Hey, you're not going to catch a cold from running around in the rain, are you?" She sounded like she was joking.

" _Ha-tshoo!_ " He rubbed his nose. "Already got one," he admitted.

"Oh," she said awkwardly. "I didn't think—you know, this you-being-human-thing takes a little getting used to."

He let out a sharp laugh. "Tell me about it. So, what say we call it a night?"

"Yeah. Oh God, yeah. Let's go."

Spike was about to suggest making for somewhere where they could get a cab, but then he realized they had no money, no cards, no cell phone. Nothing. _Bugger_.

The thought of the long walk home made him want to curl up on the ground. To just give the fuck up and let the rain fall on him until he drowned. It was a familiar feeling, and he fought through it by thinking of Xander. He imagined Xander at home, in their bed, waiting for him. Naked.

It wasn't working. He was so fucking tired. He stopped walking, put a hand against a wall to hold himself up.

He imagined Xander if he didn't come home. Hurt, angry. Losing himself in the drink again. Nobody to talk to, because he _couldn't_ talk to any of the rest of them anymore, they didn't understand him, not like Spike did. He started walking again.

"Spike?" Buffy had stopped, having apparently just realized he'd fallen behind. "Are you okay?"

He wasn't, and he was going to have to tell her. "Buffy, I don't think I can—"

Somewhere not far away, a child screamed.

Buffy's attention snapped instantly to the direction of the sound. "Oh God," she said. "Whatever's killing those kids—"

"It's out there," he finished the thought. "Go. I'll catch up."

She took off at a sprint without a backward glance. He followed, a little slower, but with more energy than he'd believed he had left in him a moment ago. The adrenaline surge that had never materialized during the mugging was hitting him now; there was something primal in the sound of a child's scream.

He'd lost his broken box slat a while back. Just as well—the thing probably would have splintered if he'd tried to use it on an actual vamp. As he ran he tried to look for a replacement, but it was too dark and his glasses were still blurry from the rain. _Figure it out when I get there,_ he promised himself.

He caught up to Buffy just two blocks away, which was a good thing because his chest was already feeling tight. He held onto a wall and tried to muffle his coughing and get a look at what was going on.

His first glimpse of the fight was confusing. Buffy was fighting ... three _children_? The biggest looked maybe twelve, the smallest as young as six. But they were holding their own against her; as he watched, the oldest did a backflip and caught Buffy under the chin with his foot, sending her flying backwards towards the middle one. Buffy used her momentum to her advantage—she slammed the middle one against a brick wall and then, turning quickly, plunged her stake into his chest. He dusted with a barely-audible pop.

 _Vampires,_ Spike realized with a sick feeling. _Child-vampires._

As Buffy engaged the biggest one again, the small one turned in Spike's direction. Snarling, in full demon-face, she darted towards him.

"Bloody hell." He snatched up a trashcan lid and hurled it at her discus-style. It didn't take her down, but it distracted her for a moment at least. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to hand that might make a good weapon—particularly, nothing made of wood. Spike raised his fists and glanced in Buffy's direction. He wasn't sure if she'd seen him yet. "Slayer!" he shouted.

She looked up, and gave a quick nod before spinning to deflect the punch the oldest vampire had thrown at her head. It was enough; she knew he was there and she'd come help as soon as she could. For now, all he had to do was hold off a four foot tall, forty pound little girl with yellow eyes and gleaming fangs.

She crouched about ten feet away, looking a little more cautious now that he'd shown himself ready to fight back. "Well, come on you little beast," Spike said. "Let's do this."

She sprang up and lunged for him. He stepped to the side at the last moment and gave her a shove so she ran into the wall. She collided with the brick with an enraged shriek—exactly the sound you'd expect out of a frustrated six-year-old girl.

She fought like a novice; he'd lay good odds that she was newly-turned. That was good news for him, but she was still stronger than him as well as faster, and he didn't have a stake. All he could do was buy time and hope that Buffy finished with the other one quickly.

He backed quickly away from her attempt to kick him in the shins, and then managed to punch her in the face. His reach was a good deal longer than hers. He hadn't often fought a creature quite this small; it took a little getting used to.

The second time he punched her, she grabbed his wrist with her two hands. Her tiny fingers were like steel. She yanked him towards her with a vicious smile. He couldn't break her grip, but she was small enough that he could brace himself and swing _her_ against the wall again. She let go and scrambled a few feet away, snarling at him.

And then Buffy came flying at her from another direction. She knocked the tiny vampire down to the ground and landed on top of her.

"Buffy, wait! Don't stake her!" Spike said quickly.

Buffy had the girl-vampire pinned. Buffy's knee was planted firmly on the small chest, and she held both the vampire's skinny wrists in her left hand and her stake in her right. The vampire struggled, but Buffy was plenty strong enough to hold her down. "You want to question her?" Buffy guessed. "It'll have to be you, I bet she doesn't speak English."

Spike crouched down near the little girl's head. "<Did Drusilla send you?>" he asked.

The girl just snarled at him, baring her fangs.

"Answer the question," Buffy said, poking her with the stake.

That got the girl's attention; she craned her neck to see the stake and her eyes went wide. Suddenly her demon features slipped away and she was a grubby, scared little girl with big brown eyes. "<Don't hurt me,>" she begged in a soft, high voice.

"<Did Drusilla send you?>" Spike repeated.

"<I don't know what you mean,>" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"<A beautiful lady with long black hair,>" Spike said. "<Have you seen her?>"

Wide-eyed, the little girl shook her head.

"Seems she's never heard of Dru," Spike told Buffy. "Might be you were right that I imagined her. This is something different."

"Ask her who sired her," Buffy said. Her voice was thick with horror.

Spike started to ask the question, but then realized he had no idea how to say 'sire' in Portuguese. "<Do you know who made you?>" was the best he could manage.

The girl's expression got a little bolder. "<Carlos made me,>" she said.

"<Is Carlos a child like you?>"

She gave a fierce smile. "<No. He's old. Fifteen. He'll kill you.>"

Spike took a quick look over his shoulder to make sure she didn't mean that Carlos was about to kill him _now_ , but no one was there.

"What?" Buffy asked. "What's she saying?"

"Seems she was turned by some vamp named Carlos. Sounds like he's a boy himself."

Buffy looked like she was going to be sick. "How many of these child-vamps are there?"

It was a good question, so Spike repeated it in Portuguese.

"<Enough of us to kill you all,>" the little girl said, and spat at him.

"Hey!" Spike jerked back, and wiped his face. "Little bitch."

"Well?" Buffy prompted.

"Sounds like someone's massing up minions." Spike poked the girl with his toe. "<Where is Carlos?>"

The girl bared her teeth at him—blunt human teeth, baby teeth—and didn't say a word.

"I think that's all we're going to get out of her," Spike said to Buffy. "You can dust her now."

Even though the girl couldn't have understood his words, she must have caught his tone, because her expression shifted right back to terror, and she started to whimper. Tears welled in her eyes.

"Oh my God," Buffy said softly, not moving. "I can't. She's a little girl."

"She's a monster," Spike reminded her. But gently, because he knew this must be hard. He wasn't sure if Buffy had ever slayed a vampire in child-form before tonight. "If we let her go, she'll kill people. Probably other children, since they'd be the easiest for her to hunt."

"There was a child. A human one, before you got here—the three of them were holding him down, about to kill him." She looked at Spike, her inner turmoil obvious in her eyes. "He ran away as soon as I started fighting them."

"There, you see? You know what you have to do." He nodded towards the stake.

The little girl started to cry—desperate, frightened sobs.

Buffy shook her head. "I can't," she said in a tiny voice.

Spike knelt beside her. "Then let me," he said. He took the stake from Buffy—she didn't resist—and he gripped it firmly in his left hand. The little girl's sobs got faster and softer, and she stared up at him with blatant terror. He didn't want to do it, but everything he'd said to Buffy was true.

He thrust down with the stake. It was a quick, clean kill. The little girl exploded into dust and Buffy's knees dropped to the pavement. Buffy let out a soft cry, and covered her mouth. 

Spike hesitated, then rested a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "You all right?"

She shook her head. "We could have ... we could have taken her home."

"And then what? Locked her in a cage? Magicked a soul into her? That'd be a hard burden for a little girl. Believe me, Buffy, it's better this way."

She nodded, but her eyes were tight with sorrow. "I want to go home."

Spike took her hand, feeling the weight of his own weariness. "Me too, Buffy. But I'm going to need a little help."


	6. Chapter 6

The pencil Xander was fiddling with snapped between his fingers. He blinked at it, surprised, and then threw it away. "Where _are_ they?"

Oz didn't even look up from his guitar, let alone answer. To be fair, even someone considerably less laconic than Oz would probably have stopped responding to that question at about the tenth or eleventh repetition.

Xander looked at his watch. "Okay. Fuck. We've been home for an hour. I want to go looking for them."

"Sao Paulo's pretty big." Oz picked softly at the guitar as he talked; Xander recognized it after a moment as the opening riff of _Hotel California_.

"Can't you track them by scent or something?"

Oz shook his head. "Been raining for an hour and a half." He played a bad chord, frowned, and started again from the beginning. "Washes the trail away."

Xander picked up the broken pieces of pencil and tried to fit them back together. Then he threw them down again. "This is driving me insane."

Oz just raised an eyebrow.

"You're sure the phone's working?" Xander got up and checked. The dial tone was steady.

Oz put his hand over the guitar strings to quiet them. "Buffy said she was going to go do a patrol. Maybe Spike went with her."

"No." Xander went back to the couch and flopped down. "He wouldn't have gone out. He wasn't feeling well."

Oz started a different song. Nirvana's _Something In The Way_. "Thought he was just tired," he said as he played. "Maybe he had a nap and he felt better."

Xander shook his head. "He said he was tired, but he was getting sick."

"You sure?"

"He was quiet this morning. Cranky. Clearing his throat a lot. He was definitely getting a cold." These were signs Xander had attuned himself to since falling in love with a former vampire with a weak immune system and too much pride, who'd never admit he was feeling sick until he'd already hit the should've-been-in-bed-an-hour-ago point.

"Maybe they went out for coffee," Oz suggested. "They had a lot to talk about."

"Yeah. Maybe." Xander wasn't much happier with that idea than with any of the disaster scenarios that had been playing through his head for the past hour. Spike and Buffy had a lot to talk about all right, like 'Are you still in love with me?' and 'I could never stop feeling that way about you' and—the pencil half snapped into quarters. "I'm going to check again to see if they left a note. Maybe we missed something before." Leaving Oz to his guitar, Xander went to comb the apartment for clues.

At least it gave him something to do.

There wasn't a note, no more than there had been the first three times he'd looked. But this time when he noticed Spike's jacket lying on the chair in the guest room, he thought to check the pockets.

"We have to start calling the hospitals," he announced, coming back into the living room.

"Huh?" Oz looked up. "What's that?"

"Spike's inhaler. He left it behind."

"Does he have another one?"

"No, not here."

"Does he ever go out without it?"

"Well, yeah, sometimes he forgets it. Which, believe me, is _so_ not good. Especially now."

Oz's fingers hesitated over the strings for a moment. "What's special about now?"

"It's always worse when he's sick. And it's been worse than usual lately, anyway." Xander turned the inhaler over in his hand—the prescription label on the canister was from Sunnydale, 1999. "Maybe he had an attack and Buffy took him to a hospital. They wouldn't have wanted to show this to a doctor—it's from when we were time traveling."

"If that's what happened, Buffy'll call," Oz said reasonably, and picked up the music where he'd left off.

Xander didn't want reasonableness. He wanted someone to panic with. Why did all his friends have such high panic thresholds?

He threw himself down on the couch. Put the inhaler on the coffee table. Picked up the biggest pencil fragment. Wished he could have a cigarette. Wished he could have a drink.

Oz silenced the strings again. "They're here."

"What?" Xander jumped up. "Where?"

"I heard the gate squeak."

Xander ran to the door and threw it open. Spike and Buffy were coming up the front path; Spike was shirtless and his arm was slung over Buffy's shoulders. Xander's split-second relief gave way to a flare of frightened jealousy, and then stomach-clenching worry a moment later when he realized Buffy wasn't so much snuggling with Spike as holding him up. 

It was raining hard again, but he went down to meet them anyway. "What the _hell_ is going on? Where were you two?" 

Buffy didn't quite meet his eye. "Let's get inside first."

Spike didn't say anything at all, and barely reacted when Xander put an arm around him. Spike's skin was cold and clammy, and he was shivering. This was profoundly not of the good.

Buffy let go and went ahead to open the door, which had swung closed on its own. Xander suddenly found himself supporting almost all of Spike's weight. He still had no idea what was going on, but it was pretty clear that Spike had gone out and gotten himself well and truly fucked up.

There were a couple steps up to the front door. "Can you do the stairs?" he asked Spike, trying to keep his rising fear out of his tone.

Spike replied in a hoarse whisper. "No."

 _So not good._ "Okay. Hang on, I'll get you up." He lifted Spike, cradled him in his arms. Spike wasn't a heavy guy but it wasn't exactly _easy_ , not like it would be for Buffy.

She noticed, made a little move towards them. "Do you want me to—"

Xander shook his head. "Just hold the door."

He made it up the steps and through the doorway, being careful not to bump Spike against the frame. At least Spike wasn't limp in his arms; he had an arm wrapped around Xander's shoulders for balance. Xander could feel the shivers wracking his whole body.

As soon as he saw them, Oz put down his guitar and stood up. "What happened?"

Buffy came in behind Xander and shut the door. "It's kinda a long story."

Xander carried Spike over to the couch. "Oz, we need towels. Blankets." He laid Spike down. Crouched next to him, touched his face. "Spike? You need to tell me what happened."

"I'm just t-tired, luv. Pushed it t-too far." He coughed.

Xander turned back to Buffy. "Okay, I want to hear the long story. _Now_. Starting with why the hell was Spike out in the rain in the first place?"

Buffy, standing on the mat just inside the door, starting wringing out her own shirt. She was still avoiding meeting Xander's eye. "It wasn't raining when we started. I wanted to check out some possible vamp activity in a neighborhood near here, and I needed Spike to do the talking for me."

"You took him out on _patrol_?"

Oz arrived with an armful of fluffy yellow towels. He handed two to Xander and one to Buffy. "I put a quilt in the dryer," he said. "Five minutes, to warm it up."

Spike touched Xander's hand. "D-don't blame Buffy. I wanted t-to go."

 _Because Buffy asked you to,_ Xander thought, but he didn't say it. "Sit up, I've got to get you dry." He helped Spike get into a huddled sitting position, and started rubbing him down with the towel. "Why didn't you come back when it started raining?"

"There were c-complications."

Spike failed to elaborate, so Xander turned to Buffy. 

She stopped rubbing her hair with the towel and said, almost sheepishly, "We were robbed."

"You were _robbed_?" Xander stared at her. "By humans?"

She nodded.

"Uh, don't you have superpowers?"

"They had guns."

"You were robbed at gunpoint." Xander felt his voice going a little high-pitched. This was _worse_ than what he'd been imagining.

Buffy winced. "Believe me, it was not my proudest moment."

"N-nothing you could've d-done, pet," Spike said, and then he sneezed. " _Ha-tishoo!_ "

Xander looked at Spike, who was sniffling. This part was exactly what Xander had been afraid of. "You're sick."

Spike just nodded, and sneezed again.

"Jesus Christ, Spike, why'd you take your _shirt_ off?"

Spike touched the place where his t-shirt was tied around his upper arm. "Had t-to use it f-for a bandage."

"What happened?"

Buffy gave Xander a guilty look. "He got shot."

"Shot?!"

"Only a little," Spike said, sniffling again. "Can I get a tissue?"

"There's some in the bathroom," Oz said, leaving the room.

"You got _shot_?!" Xander was having a little trouble getting past this fact. "And this wasn't the first thing you mentioned when you came in the door?"

"Didn't th-think of it much after the f-fight with the vampires." He took the kleenex box the Oz handed him and snatched one out to blow his nose.

" _Vampires_?!" Xander turned to Buffy. "In the pouring rain, after you'd been robbed and Spike had been _shot_ , you went ahead and fought _vampires_?"

"We just sort of ran into them," Buffy said, sounding a little defensive. "We were _about_ to head home."

"B-besides, we had t-to see if Dru was b-behind it. Thought I s-saw her earlier."

Xander found himself on his feet and the towel on the floor. He could hear his own blood rushing in his ears. " _Drusilla_ is here?!"

"No," Buffy said, at the same time as Spike said: "Maybe."

"I can't believe this. I can't fucking believe this." Xander was dimly aware, at this point, that he'd pretty much lost it. He wanted to hit something. "Buffy, what the _fuck_ is going on here? Did somebody cast a spell? Some kind of everything-that-could-possibly-go-wrong-in-an-hour-flat curse? Did you piss off a vengeance demon? 'Cause I'm telling you, whatever the fuck it is, I want my boyfriend _out_ of it!"

Someone touched Xander's shoulder on his blind side. He reacted like a freaked-out cat, lashing out before he even realized what was happening.

Oz deflected his wild punch with a gentle Tai Chi-style move. "Xander," he said, like being calm was his own personal superpower, "Chill. There's stuff to do."

Buffy was backed against the wall, hugging herself. She looked like she might be about to cry. Xander was mad enough at her that he didn't even care.

Oz was still talking. "Take Spike into the bedroom. Get his clothes off. I'll bring you the quilt. Buffy needs us out of here so she can get changed herself."

The bit about Spike got Xander moving. Breathing steadily again. Spike was lying back on the couch with his eyes closed and his arms tucked tight around his bruised chest. His jeans were so wet Xander could see dark patches on the couch where he was lying, and he was still visibly shivering.

Like the flip of a switch, he was back from rage to fear. Nobody else here understood how serious this was—how fragile Spike was now, how many times an ordinary cold had escalated into desperate emergency room visits and weeks in the hospital. 

Okay, _Spike_ knew, but he systematically denied it, which was probably how he'd ended up where he was right now. Xander was pretty sure he was going to be furious with Spike as soon as he finished being worried about him. "Hey, Spike." He knelt by the couch, and touched Spike's hand. "Can you hear me?"

Spike opened his eyes and managed something faintly resembling a smirk. "H-heard you goin' postal. Makes a bloke f-feel loved."

"We're gonna get you warm and dry, okay?" Xander tucked an arm under Spike's shoulders.

"C'n walk on my own," Spike protested as Xander lifted him off the couch, but the words didn't have much oomph behind them.

"Sure," Xander agreed, "but you don't have to. I've got you now." He carried Spike into the guest bedroom, and laid him down on the bed with his feet dangling over the edge. "Okay, boots first." He started working on the waterlogged laces. As usual, Spike had tied the things with messy knots, like a simple pull-both-ends-to-release-this kind of bow was too girly for him. Xander's fingernails were short, bitten down nearly to the quick, and his blunt fingertips couldn't get around the tight, wet laces. The tiny, hard little knots refused to yield. "Fuck it," he muttered. He pulled out his pocketknife and sliced through the laces.

He quickly peeled off the rest of Spike's wet clothes—socks, jeans, underwear. For the jeans part Spike stood up, leaning heavily on Xander's shoulder and shaking badly. "Think I fucked up," he said.

Xander rolled his eye. "No kidding." It came out kind of sharp. He wanted to yell at Spike for going out in the night, in the rain, when he was sick. For going out with Buffy—what was that all about? And Spike had obviously noticed the tone, because he was pulling away from Xander, looking tense and miserable. _Fuck. This is so not a good time for a fight._ "Sorry," Xander said. "I'm just kinda worried about you."

There was a knock at the bedroom door, and Oz said "It's me." He entered the room with a bulky quilt in his arms, which he handed over to Xander. It was warm, almost hot to the touch. "This should help," he said. The quilt was powder blue, covered with pink and orange stars. It was hideously ugly.

"Where the fuck did this thing come from?" Spike asked as Xander wrapped him up in it. "School for the blind?"

"Willow made it," Oz said.

"Oh. Sorry, mate. No offense."

Oz shrugged. "None taken."

Xander felt a little bit calmer. Spike being snarky was a good sign, generally speaking. He'd stopped shivering, too. Xander helped him get propped up against the pillows at the head of the bed. "How are you doing?" he asked quietly.

"Feel like shite, actually. Fuck, hold on a mo—" Spike huddled in on himself and sneezed a couple times.

"I'll get the Kleenex," Oz offered from the doorway, and disappeared down the hall.

Xander picked up the wet clothes and hung them over the wooden chair that stood in a corner of the room. Then he went to Spike's duffle bag and started picking out a dry outfit.

"What're you up to, luv?" Spike asked. "Don't think I'll be going out for a while."

"We still have to go to the hospital," Xander reminded him as Oz came back into the room with the Kleenex box. "Remember the part about you getting shot?"

"That'll wait till tomorrow." Spike took a couple tissues and blew his nose.

Xander gave him a disbelieving look. "Like hell. You were _shot_."

"You don't have to keep saying it. Not like I've forgotten. It's my bloody arm, and it fucking hurts."

"Which brings me back to my point about let's-go-to-the-hospital-now."

"I'll take some painkillers."

"Yeah, that'll help with the gaping hole in your flesh."

Spike tugged the quilt a little tighter around himself and gave Xander a raw, pleading look. "I'm tired, pet. If we go to the hospital it'll be hours before I can sleep. I just want to rest."

"Oh." Xander had thought Spike was protesting out of bravado, not weariness. This changed things. "Okay, maybe you should get some sleep first."

Oz cleared his throat. "Actually, you need to get the stitches tonight," he said to Spike. "It'll be too late tomorrow, the cut will've already started to heal. But you don't have to go out. I can do it here."

"Huh?" Xander put a protective hand on Spike's shoulder. "Call me unadventurous, but I'd rather get my boyfriend treated by someone with actual medical training."

Oz nodded. "Understood. But it's okay. I _have_ actual medical training."


	7. Chapter 7

"I did some serious first aid courses a few years back," Oz explained as he set up his ad hoc infirmary on the kitchen table. "Military-type stuff. Seemed like it would come in handy, with the demon-fighting and everything."

"You kept that up?" Buffy asked. "After you left Sunnydale?" She'd changed into cotton pajamas with cartoon kittens printed on them. She was hanging back near the kitchen door, clearly wanting to avoid Xander and yet not be entirely left out of whatever was happening now.

"Sure. Once I knew it was all out there, I couldn't turn my back on it." He'd spread a white towel on the table, and set out a large tupperware box he'd taken from the bathroom. Now he opened the box, and Xander saw it was full of first aid supplies. "Anyway, after I came to Sao Paulo, I started volunteering in a free medical clinic a couple days a week. They need all the help they can get." He looked at the stuff he'd laid out on the table, and nodded to himself. "Okay, Xander, you can go get Spike now."

Spike was curled up on the bed. He'd taken his glasses off and his eyes were closed, like he was trying to go to sleep, but he was coughing.

"Hey," Xander said softly, sitting down next to him. "Oz is ready for you. How are you doing?"

"Been better," Spike said, without opening his eyes, and coughed again.

"Do you need the inhaler? It's in the living room." Xander brushed Spike's still-damp hair off his forehead, and laid his hand there for a moment to check for fever.

"Maybe. Yeah. Chest hurts a little." He reached up and pulled Xander's hand away. "It's just a cold, don't worry. I'm completely knackered, is all."

"So let's get this over with." Xander helped Spike sit up. The quilt fell away, reminding them both that Spike was naked underneath. "Uh, Buffy's in the kitchen too. I'll find your pajamas."

Spike pulled on the pajama pants with minimal assistance. Just lying down for the ten minutes while Oz got the first aid stuff ready seemed to have done him some good, Xander noticed with relief.

Spike made it out to the kitchen on his own feet, with just Xander's arm for support. Xander got him settled on the chair Oz had set out, and then went to the living room to pick up the inhaler.

When he returned, Oz was already cutting the makeshift bandage off Spike's arm. The scissors he was using looked all officially surgical, and he was wearing latex gloves.

"...something funny going on," Spike was saying. "Vamps don't usually turn children."

Xander handed the inhaler to Spike and then went and perched on the edge of the table at the far end, out of Oz's way. "What was that about children?"

Spike set the inhaler on the table without using it. "We were just telling Oz about the vamps we fought."

"It was like fighting little kids," Buffy said. She was still standing over by the door, with her arms crossed protectively over her chest. "It felt all wrong."

"Hold still," Oz said. "This might hurt a bit, if the bandage is stuck." He started to carefully peel the t-shirt away from Spike's arm.

"When a child gets vamped, they can never grow up," Spike said, continuing the earlier conversational thread. "Not physically, not emotionally. Which makes them really bloody annoying. Not the kind of minion your average vamp would want to saddle himself with." He looked down at his arm. "Didn't hurt."

Oz frowned slightly, looking at the exposed gash on Spike's arm. "It hasn't clotted much." He tossed the bits of t-shirt into the garbage pail he'd brought over by the table, and then took out a squeeze bottle labeled 'Betadine' and started washing off the wound.

"The little girl—I mean, the vamp who looked like a little girl—she said their leader was named Carlos," Buffy said. "And that he was—" she turned to Spike "—how old?"

"Fifteen." Spike looked at where Oz was now dabbing some kind of clear gel onto the edges of the wound with a big q-tip. "What's that?"

"Topical anesthetic," Oz said. "So the stitches won't hurt too much."

"Oh. Wouldn't have hurt anyway. Took some painkillers already."

The vague plural worried Xander a little—Spike had a tendency to ignore the recommended dosage and take however many pills he thought he needed to make the pain go away. Considering the series of incredibly stupid decisions Spike had already made tonight, a painkiller overdose would be pretty much par for the course. "How many?"

Spike rolled his eyes at Xander, like he knew exactly what he was thinking. Which he certainly did, since they'd had this conversation at least a dozen times before. "Three," he said.

Which was a technical overdose, but probably not enough to hurt him, so Xander let it go.

Meanwhile, Oz had taken a foil packet out of the first aid box. When he ripped it open, Xander saw that it contained a needle already threaded with what he assumed was surgical thread. Looking impressively competent, Oz pinched together the edges of the gash on Spike's arm and started stitching him up.

"Seems this Carlos is trying to make himself into a Big Bad," Spike said. "Making himself an army of impressionable little kiddie vamps."

"I'm going to have to fight more of them, aren't I?" Buffy said, slumping against the door frame. "Oh God."

Oz looked up from his needlework. "Kennedy and I can go out with you tomorrow night."

Buffy looked a little doubtful. "Won't Kennedy want to stay in with Willow and the baby?"

"She'll do what she has to. This sounds like it might be big." Oz tied off the thread and started wrapping a gauze bandage around Spike's arm.

"Hey, speaking of things that might be big," Xander said, "What was that earlier about Drusilla?"

"Maybe nothing." Spike exchanged a glance with Buffy. Why was he looking at her that way? Xander felt a flare of irritation; Buffy was the one who'd gotten Spike into this whole mess.

"Spike thought he saw her. But when we looked for her...," Buffy shrugged, "nothing."

"May've been all in my head," Spike said, still looking at Buffy. "But you will keep an eye out, yeah?"

Buffy nodded. "I will."

"So, hey, all done?" Xander said. Oz had just clipped the end of the bandage in place, and Xander wanted to get out of the kitchen. 

"Yeah. The stitches should stay in for a couple of weeks," Oz said. "I'll change the bandage tomorrow night."

"Thanks, mate," Spike said, and started to stand up. Then he sat back down abruptly and dropped his head down into his hands. "Bugger."

Oz grabbed Spike's shoulder to steady him, and Buffy made a hesitant move like she was going to go to him but then decided not to. Xander was already around the table and at Spike's side by the time Buffy had finished her aborted gesture. He knelt in front of Spike, getting himself down to his eye level. "Hey, are you still with us? What happened?"

"Dizzy," Spike said, barely loud enough for Xander to hear. "Fuck." And then he went the rest of the way limp; Oz stopped him from toppling off the chair.

"Spike?" Xander's voice cracked. "Oh God."

"He's just fainted," Oz said. "We need to put him in a recovery position. Buffy, can you carry him—"

"No," Xander interrupted him. "I'll do it." The idea of Buffy touching Spike at this point made Xander feel nauseous.

Oz raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. "Okay, I'll help you. Buffy, go pull the covers back on the bed."

Spike was a lot harder to pick up now that he was unconscious. Oz hooked his hands under Spike's shoulders, and Xander got an arm under his waist and one behind his knees, and they carried him together. Refusing to let Buffy help had probably been kind of rash. Oh well. Xander still didn't want her touching Spike.

Buffy was standing behind the bed with its turned-back covers, looking like she really wanted someone to give her something else to do. Xander shot her a look that made her wince, but she didn't leave.

"Lay him on his side," Oz said as they got to the bed. "Right, now bend his knees."

Xander followed Oz's instructions and then pulled the blankets up over Spike—as his hands brushed Spike's shoulders, Spike's eyes fluttered open.

"Where the fuck am I?"

"Don't sit up." Xander kept a hand on Spike's shoulder to make sure he stayed down. "You fainted, and we carried you into the bedroom."

Spike closed his eyes again. "Bloody hell."

Oz moved in a little closer. "Spike, I'm gonna check your pulse. Hold still, okay?" He laid a couple fingers against Spike's neck and checked his watch.

Xander looked up and saw that Buffy was still there. "Buffy? It's time for you to go."

"But—is he okay?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"He just needs to rest," Oz said, standing up. "Let's give him and Xander some space." He waited for Buffy to leave before he followed her, shutting the door softly behind them.

Finally alone with Spike, Xander didn't quite know what to do. He wanted to hug him and yell at him and ask him what the _fuck_ he'd been thinking, but Spike looked too fragile for any of that right now, even the hugging. So Xander just stretched out on the bed facing him and lightly touched his cheek. "I love you so much it hurts," he said softly when Spike opened his eyes.

"Sorry," Spike said, even quieter than Xander. "Didn't mean for it to hurt." 

"Shhh." Xander touched Spike's lips. "Go to sleep."

***

Buffy and Oz were both sitting at the kitchen table, cradling coffee mugs in their hands and talking softly. Xander hesitated at the doorway, about to just turn around and go back to bed, but Oz looked up.

"Hi," he said to Xander. "How's Spike?"

"He fell asleep a while ago." 

Oz nodded. "Good. Oh, hey, you should put this somewhere you can find it." He held up the inhaler, which had been left on the table. 

Xander remembered how Spike had asked for it earlier, and then not used it. Probably because he didn't want to take it with everyone watching. Xander wondered for a moment whether he should've reminded Spike to take it. Oh well. He held out his hands so that Oz would toss it to him. "I'll put it back in his pocket later."

"Want something to drink?" Oz offered. "I already made herbal tea, but there's soda too."

Xander didn't want to sit down at the table with Buffy, who was looking at him now with troubled eyes. He was still too upset about what she'd put Spike through. But he didn't really want to go back to bed, either, because he couldn't sleep and he didn't want to disturb Spike. "I thought I'd watch TV for a bit," he said. "Maybe a soda?"

Oz got up and went to the fridge. "Hey, Spike said yesterday you're into motorcycles," he said, opening the door.

Xander smiled slightly. "Spike's into motorcycles. I'm into him."

Oz took a couple of red and white cans from the bottom shelf of the fridge, and handed one to Xander. "Ever try a Guarana Jesus before? They're pretty good."

Xander took an amused look at the logo, then popped the tab and took a cautious sip. It was kind of fruity. "Not bad."

"Anyway," Oz said, "I have a bike outside. A '96 BMW R100GS I got in Mexico. I thought you might like to check it out."

The bike didn't interest Xander much in itself, but as an excuse to get out of the kitchen before Buffy tried talking to him it sounded pretty damn appealing. "Sure," he said. "Let's make with the manly talk about cylinders and horsepower."

"Have fun with that," Buffy said kind of awkwardly, and took a quick gulp of tea to avoid meeting Xander's eye.

Oz led him out the side door, which led directly into the carport. The space was two cars wide, with one car currently missing. Oz flipped a light on and headed for the back, where there was a motorcycle-sized shape covered with a black tarp that Xander hadn't noticed before. Pulling the tarp off, Oz nodded down at the dusty reddish bike. "It doesn't look like much, but it's got me over mountains, through rainforest and desert—some pretty rough terrain. I rode down a Suvolte demon on it once."

"Did you tell Spike about that one?" Xander asked. "He has a funny story of his own about Suvolte demons."

Oz gave a little shrug. "I didn't really ask you out here to talk about the bike. I know that's more Spike's thing. I wanted to talk to you about Spike."

"Oh," Xander said, trying not to sound too immediately and irrationally panicked at the 'serious talk' vibe in Oz's tone. He leaned back against the hood of Oz's car and took a sip of his Jesus drink. 

"I should explain something first," Oz said. "About why I came to Sao Paulo."

"I thought you came here for Willow."

Oz shook his head. "I didn't know she was here. Actually I'd been living here for nearly two years before I ran into her. I came here to study with a Spiritist healer—do you know what that means?"

Xander shook his head. "Something like Voodoo?" he took a wild guess.

"A little. It's a kind of shamanistic tradition, with roots in Africa. Healing through contact with the spirit world, that kind of thing." Oz shrugged. "There's a lot of charlatans, but I'd heard good stories about this one guy in Sao Paulo. Figured I'd check it out. I was still looking for a cure back then," he added.

"For a—you mean for the, uh, werewolf thing?"

Oz nodded. "It turned out he couldn't help me with that—not with a cure. But I stayed with him for a while, and he taught me a lot about sickness and healing. Besides being a Spiritist he was an actual medical doctor, and he'd also studied traditional medicine with a few different tribes in the Amazon basin. He was pretty cool about me being a werewolf. He helped me figure out how to _use_ my abilities, instead of always trying to push them away."

Xander shifted his weight to get a little more comfortable, and looked at Oz with interest. Back in Sunnydale he'd never talked much about being a werewolf. "What abilities?"

"Enhanced senses, mostly. Especially smell. Have you heard that there's doctors experimenting now with training dogs to diagnose some diseases by scent?"

Xander shook his head. "I must've missed Animal Planet that day."

Oz tapped his fingers absently on his soda can, giving Xander a serious look. "When I was treating Spike earlier, I noticed that he smelled ... wrong somehow. Like he might be sick."

"He _is_ sick," Xander pointed out. "He'll be lucky if he doesn't come down with pneumonia after tonight."

"It was more than that," Oz said. "Something deeper. Have you noticed anything different about him lately? Has he said anything?"

Xander's mouth felt suddenly much too dry. He took a sip of the Jesus drink without tasting it. "Maybe," he said. "He's been ... tired. I think I started noticing it a couple months ago, only I didn't really _notice_ it, you know? He said something last week, though, while we were in Sunnydale. About feeling shitty all the time. And I've been sort of watching him, and, um. I think it might be worse than he lets on."

Oz nodded slowly. "And has he talked to a doctor about it?"

"Well, no. But he promised he would—after we go back home."

"I think maybe he shouldn't wait that long."

"Oh." Xander was suddenly intensely aware of the sound of the rain on the carport's roof.

"I can call our family doctor tomorrow. She's usually good for an appointment within 48 hours."

"Okay." The carport smelled like oil, and wet dirt.

"So, you'll talk to him?"

"Yeah." Xander's voice sounded weird to him. Hollow. Flat. Like it was somebody else talking. "I will. In the morning."

***

Xander couldn't sleep.

Spike was lying on his side, breathing quietly and steadily. Xander lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and replaying the conversation with Oz in his head.

He hadn't said that Spike was sick for _sure_. Just that he smelled weird, whatever that meant. That he _might_ be sick.

'Of course he's sick,' Xander's inner voice replied—sounding kind of exasperated with him. 'When were you going to pull your head out of the fucking sand? He's always tired, he's got shadows under his eyes when he wakes up after ten hours of sleep, and when he thinks you're not looking he moves like everything hurts.'

'He's been getting sick ever since he turned human,' Xander reminded himself. 'It's nothing new.'

'This isn't an asthma attack,' the little voice in his head replied. 'It isn't a migraine. It might all be connected, but this _is_ something new. Something worse.'

'Hey, who says it's worse? Oz didn't say it was _worse_.'

'No, but he took you out into the garage in the middle of the night and told you to get Spike to a doctor as soon as possible. Oz isn't usually big with the dramatics. He must think it's serious.'

Xander couldn't argue with his inner voice on that point. He closed his eye, and tried to stop thinking and go to sleep. It didn't work.

'He's dying, isn't he?'

'No. Fuck no. He's not allowed to be dying.'

'Uh, that's not actually the way it works.'

'I don't care how it works. Spike is not allowed to be dying.'

'But what if he _is_?'

'Then we'll fix him.'

'By _we_ do you mean the two voices in my head?'

'No, dumbass. This two-voices thing is just a construction for freaking-out purposes while I'm lying quietly in bed. By _we_ I mean, oh, everybody. Willow, Oz, Giles, Dawn, Andrew, even Buffy—everybody. We'll research like it's 1999.'

***

He didn't know he'd fallen asleep until he woke up, but the digital clock said 2:37 and the last he remembered, it'd been just past midnight.

Something was wrong. Something—okay, he remembered. Lots of things were wrong. But right now? Spike was crying in his sleep.

Okay, not crying. Whimpering, sort of. Desperate, high-pitched noises. He was having a nightmare.

Xander gripped Spike's arm—which was slick with sweat—and shook him lightly. "Spike? Wake up. Love? It's not real, whatever it is. You're safe."

Spike woke up with a gasp that turned into a hoarse cough. When Xander reached out to him, Spike immediately burrowed against Xander's chest, tucking his head down like he was hiding from something or someone. He was shaking, and drenched in sweat.

"Xander," he said—it sounded like a plea.

"I'm here. You're here. It's okay." They were half-sitting up, and Xander found himself rocking Spike a little. It felt comforting.

Spike shook his head against Xander's chest. He coughed again, and then managed to say, "Dru. She's in my head."

"You had a bad dream. You're sick. You—I think you have a fever. Dru's not here. You thought you saw her earlier, remember?"

Spike coughed, and didn't answer.

The coughing was worrying Xander. "Hang on. I'm getting your inhaler."

Xander got out of bed and fumbled around until he found the light switch. Blinking in the sudden brightness, he found Spike's inhaler. Spike took a dose as soon as Xander handed the thing to him, and then let his head drop to the pillow. "Thanks," he said raggedly, and shuddered again. "Fuck. That was a hell of a dream."

With the light on, Xander could see that the sheets around Spike were completely soaked. His hair clung to his head in damp curls, and his face and bare chest glistened with sweat. "I think we should change the sheets," Xander said, aiming for calm. "And dry you off."

He left Spike lying on the bed and went in search of fresh sheets. He didn't want to wake Oz up to ask him where they were. As freaky as the waking-up-drenched-in-sweat thing was, this wasn't the first time it had happened. Xander knew how to deal.

He found a linen closet behind a door in the bathroom. He found a fitted sheet and a topsheet that looked like they'd fit the bed, and he brought them back to the bedroom along with a towel and a face cloth he'd dampened with warm water.

"Can you sit up?" he asked Spike.

"Yeah, of course," Spike said, and pushed himself upright on visibly trembling arms.

"Uh, let's do it this way." Xander quickly set a pillow up against the headboard. "Lean back. Okay." He used the facecloth to wipe the sweat from Spike's face, first, and then his neck and torso. Spike watched him with hollow eyes; Xander had a sense that Spike was seeing something other than what was in front of him. "Do you want to talk about the dream?"

Spike squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before he answered. "No. It was Dru and me—it was memories, mostly. Ancient history." He ducked his head to the side and sneezed.

"Bless you." Xander handed Spike the Kleenex box from the bedside table, and felt his forehead. It seemed warm. "I want to check your temperature. How does your chest feel?"

"It's all right. It's just a cold."

"Yeah, well. We'll let Mr. Digital Thermometer decide that." Xander went over to their duffle bags, and found the little black bag that held Spike's various prescriptions. It also had a digital thermometer in a plastic case. He brought it back to Spike. "Under the tongue. You know the drill."

Spike rolled his eyes at Xander, but complied, sniffling. Xander started rubbing him down with the towel. He couldn't help noticing the bruises again—the yellowing old ones from the vamp attack in Sunnydale, and the new reddish-purple ones from tonight's adventure. God, there were a lot. He noticed the bands around both Spike's wrists, especially. "Somebody grab you?" he asked, touching them.

Spike rolled his eyes again, this time in a _you know I can't talk while you're taking my temperature, you daft git_ kind of way. Then the thermometer beeped.

"Vamp girl," Spike said, taking the instrument out and handing it to Xander without looking at it.

Xander checked the readout. A hundred point four degrees. He felt a bit of the tension in his shoulders ease—that was a give-Spike-a-glass-of-juice-and-put-him-back-to-bed kind of temperature, not a rush-Spike-to-the-ER kind of temperature. "Okay, let me find you some new clothes."

Spike didn't have a spare pair of pajama pants, so Xander picked out a pair of his own running shorts—they were too big for Spike, but they had a drawstring. He picked a loose t-shirt from Spike's bag. "Here, do you need help?"

Spike shook his head and climbed off the bed. He looked a little shaky, but with a hand on the mattress for balance he did okay. Xander waited just over an arm's length away, ready to step in if he was needed, but giving Spike some space.

When Spike had finished changing, Xander wrapped him up in Willow's quilt—which they'd tossed aside earlier in the evening—and sat him down in the armchair. "Wait there," he said, overplaying his Stern Voice enough to actually get a smile out of Spike.

He came back with a glass of orange juice, which he'd almost but not quite spilled when he stubbed his toe on the grandfather clock in the dark hallway. "Drink this while I change the sheets," he told Spike.

Meekly, Spike did as he was told. He still had a sort of abstracted, far-off stare that Xander figured was about the dream he'd woken up from.

It didn't take long to strip the sheets off the bed, toss them in a corner, and put the new ones on. Xander looked over and saw Spike was only half done his juice, and he'd put it down on the bedside table.

"Don't want any more," Spike said, noticing where Xander was looking. "Tastes like crap."

Xander went over and bushed a hand through Spike's hair. "Try to finish it, okay? You need liquids."

Spike gave Xander a beleaguered look, but he took the glass when Xander handed it to him, and he slammed back the rest of the juice in a few gulps. Then he handed Xander back the glass, raising an eyebrow. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic." Xander held out a hand. "Now can I help you to bed?"

Back in bed under the fresh, crisp sheets, Xander spooned against Spike. He wanted the feel of Spike safe in his arms. He knew it was an illusion, but it was a good illusion for now.

"Xander, luv?" Spike said softly. "Sorry. About tonight."

"Shhh. It's okay." Xander kissed the back of his neck. "Just ... try harder not to get killed next time."

"Worked out all right," Spike murmured. He sounded like he was already falling asleep. "Not dead yet."

Listening to Spike's breathing go slow and steady, Xander nuzzled the back of his neck, and wondered what it was that Oz had smelled. To Xander, Spike smelled just right. A mixture of shampoo and sweat, with a slight lingering tang of hair dye and maybe a hint of rainwater. He _felt_ just right, tucked up all warm in Xander's arms.

Xander closed his eye, held onto his lover, and waited for morning.


	8. Chapter 8

_In a mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt._ Buffy looked up from the cookbook. "Okay," she addressed the empty kitchen. "If I were baking powder, where would I be?"

She opened cupboards at random until she found one packed with baking stuff, and then started taking things out and putting them down on the counter. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, exactly. How do you say 'baking powder' in Portuguese?

Eventually she found a can of white powder that looked about right. Hopefully it wasn't, like, cornstarch or something. What would that even do to pancakes? She had no idea. Baking wasn't exactly at the top of her resume.

This was probably a stupid idea. There was no way the kind of screw-up she'd managed last night could be fixed with pancakes—even fluffy, golden melt-in-your mouth pancakes, which these ones were not going to be. But, well, she had to try.

Xander came into the kitchen just as Buffy was combining the dry ingredients.

"Hi," he said, hesitating in the doorway like he was considering walking back out again. Just like he had last night—and this time Oz wasn't here to do the talking.

"Good morning," she said, so brightly she almost made _herself_ cringe. God, she sounded like the Buffybot. "I made coffee," she said, trying for something a little more subdued. Contrite, maybe. "You, uh, look like you could use some."

"I didn't get a lot of sleep." It didn't quite come out as an accusation, but it skirted the edge. He padded into the kitchen and took a clean mug from the drainer by the sink.

"Oz left a little while ago for the clinic," she said. "I'm making pancakes." She was talking too fast. She felt so... _nervous_. And it was weird being nervous around Xander, weird and bad and wrong. 

It's not like she'd meant to kiss Spike. It had happened totally by accident. Mostly.

Anyway, she definitely hadn't planned on throwing herself at Spike when she'd asked him to go out on patrol with her. She'd just wanted to hear whatever lame justification he'd come up with for letting her think he was _gone_ for so long. She'd wanted...okay, she'd wanted a chance to yell at him, actually. So definitely not planning on the kissage. 

She cracked an egg over the bowl, and half the shell immediately fell into the mix. "Shit." Xander turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. She quickly considered whether it would be more embarrassing to let him see her trying to fish the eggshells out of the batter, or to just pretend nothing had happened and serve crunchy pancakes. Okay, stupid question. She grabbed a fork and started fishing. Her cheeks were burning.

"Did Oz say when he'd be getting back?" Xander asked.

"Pretty soon. He talked to Kennedy on the phone before he left—Willow and...and Tara are getting discharged this morning."

Xander leaned back against the counter, sipping his coffee. His expression had softened a little. "Kinda weird, huh. Saying 'Willow and Tara' again."

She nodded. "Majorly weird. But good!" She was doing the too-perky thing again. Dammit. She felt like she was walking on eggshells. Whereas in fact she was trying to fish eggshells out of her pancake mix, which at least gave her an excuse to break eye contact again. She gave up on the fork and went in with her fingers.

"Yeah," Xander said. "It's good."

Aaaaand awkward silence. Buffy brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes—and realized she'd just left a smear of flour across her own forehead. "She made good pancakes. Tara, I mean."

"She did." Xander took another sip of coffee.

Was he still mad at her? It was hard to tell. He was probably still mad at her. She'd almost gotten his boyfriend killed last night. God, had she ever screwed up.

Xander used to be easier than this to read, she was sure of it. Then he'd come back from Africa all dark and quiet, and refused to talk to anyone for months. And then he'd started dating Spike.

It shouldn't come as a big shocker that she was still trying to adjust to that. She'd thought she knew how things stood. Spike loved her, Xander hated Spike, Spike was dead. And then all of a sudden Spike's alive, _really_ alive, and nobody's told her, least of all him, and he and Xander are living with each other and she's hearing about it from _Rona_.

In a way, she hadn't really believed it until last night. Not until Spike had backed away from her stupid kiss. Not until she'd seen Xander's panic when she brought Spike home.

Which brought her back to the reason she was standing here trying to make guilt-appeasing pancakes.

"Um, listen," she said, hugging the bowl of batter in front of her. "Xander? I wanted to say sorry. For last night."

"Sorry," he repeated, lowering his mug and kind of staring at her.

It wasn't a very encouraging start. He was definitely still mad at her. She picked up the spoon again and started beating the batter. "How's Spike doing?" she asked, still working hard at conveying the whole _I'm really sorry!_ vibe.

God, she'd never been very good at apologies.

"How do you _think_?" Xander said. "You saw him last night."

She nodded, whipping the batter a little faster. "It was kind of scary."

" _Kind of?_ " The way he kept repeating what she said was starting to grate. "Buffy, do you have any idea how serious this is?"

Okay. Now he was pissing her off. Why couldn't he just accept an apology? "Well, yeah. I mean, in case you haven't noticed, I've been doing the life-or-death thing since I was fifteen."

"Right. You're strong and experienced and you have superpowers—so tell me why exactly you needed _Spike_ to go along with you last night?"

She had a feeling that admitting she'd mostly just wanted an excuse to talk to him wouldn't go over so well. She didn't like the way Xander's jaw had gone all tight. "I don't speak Portuguese. I needed him to translate for me."

"Kennedy and Oz are both fluent. You could've asked one of them to go with you."

"It didn't seem like a big deal! We used to patrol together all the time—"

"Yeah, when he was a vampire," he interrupted her. "Don't you get it? Everything's different now."

"Okay, yes, Spike's human! I got the memo." Her batter-beating was so violent now that the mixture was slopping over the sides of the bowl. She slammed it down on the table before the mess could get any worse. "I mean, literally, I got the memo. Apparently nobody thought it was important enough to tell me in person."

"Are we in eighth grade? It doesn't matter how you found out!" Xander's tone was edging towards shouting. "I'm sorry you felt like you were left out of the loop, but don't take it out on Spike!"

Buffy stared at him. "What do you mean, 'take it out on Spike'?! It's not like I was _trying_ to get him hurt. I did everything I could to protect him!"

Xander shook his head as if in disbelief. "You took him on a two-hour walk through a bunch of slums in the pouring rain! He was robbed, shot, _and_ attacked by vampires!"

She winced. In retrospect, the whole patrol thing had been a pretty bad idea. "But I got him home okay."

"No, you didn't! He's not okay! Were you _here_ last night?"

"It was a _tiny_ gunshot wound! He said himself it was just a scratch!"

"Jesus, Buffy, I'm not talking about the gunshot wound! He's sick! He was already sick when he went out with you! You—you dragged him around in the rain until he—fuck, he could barely _walk_ by the time you brought him back!"

Half the stuff Xander was saying wasn't fair, and the other half just struck too close to home. Buffy pushed away the memory of Spike refusing to go out when she first asked him, the memory of him coughing uncontrollably after talking to the boys with their cigarettes. "I didn't know he was sick, Xander! He didn't tell me. He agreed to go out with me! How am I supposed to know stuff if nobody tells me?!"

"Oh, I don't know—maybe by paying attention?!"

"I was!" Buffy felt herself crumpling under Xander's rage. She was going to cry. _Dammit._ She couldn't deal with Xander being mad at her like this. "I—he said he was okay." Her voice went high-pitched at the end despite her best efforts to control it. She spun around before Xander could see her tears welling up, and gripped the edge of the table.

"He says that." Xander had gone quiet again—quiet and somehow _cold_ in a way that made Buffy's neck prickle. "It's pretty much a lie." She heard him putting his mug down on the counter and walking quickly out of the room.

There was a sob welling up in her throat but she fought it back down. Her fingers tightened on the table, her nails scraping across the wood so hard she was distracted for a moment with the worry that she'd dented Willow and Kennedy's furniture. But she hadn't, so that was all right, and the shift of focus let her pull herself together enough to grab the bowl and spoon again and get back to work on the pancakes.

***

"Oh, Buffy, you didn't have to do all this! This is fantastic!"

Buffy smiled at Willow's enthusiasm, and if her smile was a little wan, well, nobody noticed. "I thought you could probably use a home-cooked meal by now."

"Hang on, honey, let me get you a better chair." Kennedy gave Willow a quick peck on the cheek and rushed off.

Oz was the one with the baby in his arms. Tara was wrapped up in a yellow blanket; from where Buffy stood only the top of her little round head was visible, pink with wisps of auburn hair. 

"Looks good," Oz said. "Hey, are Xander and Spike up yet?"

"No," Buffy said. "Um, I mean, Xander was. But he went back to bed I guess." To avoid any further questions on that particular topic, she went to the fridge and started pulling out juice containers. They had, like, five different ones.

By then Kennedy was back, carrying a straight-backed armchair with a padded seat and back. "Here, this'll be more comfortable," she said to Willow, putting it in the place of one of the regular kitchen chairs and then offering Willow a hand sitting down.

"Thanks, sweetie." Willow accepted Kennedy's help and then looked at Oz. "Let's see if Tara wants some breakfast of her own before I have mine."

Buffy watched Oz hand Tara down to Willow. He had such a gentle, peaceful expression on his face; so did Willow, and so did Kennedy, in the background.

They were glowing with happiness, she realized. All three of them. And it suddenly felt hard for her to swallow, and her eyes started prickling with tears again, and she was pretty sure it was mostly because she was happy for them, but there was a deep-down envy, too. _I'll never have that._ She pushed the thought away—it was a stupid thought, ungracious and probably not even true. _I still might have a normal relationship someday. It could happen._ She got busy arranging forks and knives. She'd set out six plates already—leaving places for Xander and Spike, even though she really didn't expect them to show up.

Willow undid the buttons of her shirt and unclipped the front of her bra, and let her nipple brush Tara's cheek until Tara turned her head and latched onto it. Willow giggled, and looked up to meet Buffy's eye. "It tickles a bit," she explained.

"I'll go check if Xander wants breakfast," Oz said.

Buffy wondered if she should warn him that she and Xander weren't exactly on being-in-the-same-room terms at the moment. She opened her mouth, even, about to say something, but Oz had already left. "So who wants pancakes?" she said instead.

"Give me two," Kennedy said, passing her plate over.

The pancakes had turned out okay, all things considered. They were a little flat, maybe, and the first half of the stack was kind of ragged—it had taken Buffy a while to remember the part about greasing the frying pan—but at least they were edible. And syrup made everything better.

"Want a bite?" Kennedy asked Willow. In response Willow turned her head and opened her mouth, eyes twinkling. Kennedy stabbed a small piece with her fork and fed it to Willow.

It was kind of strange how _not_ strange it was to watch Willow breastfeeding her daughter. _Does this make us grownups now?_ Buffy wondered. "Tara's so pretty."

Kennedy grinned. "Yeah, well, just look at her mom."

"I do," Oz said, coming back into the room in time to hear Kennedy's remark. "Every chance I get." He went over and kissed the top of Willow's head.

Willow rolled her eyes up at him and gave him what sounded like a gentle scolding—Buffy wasn't sure, because she said it in Portuguese.

Oz responded in the same language, saying something brief and calm as he took his seat.

Then Kennedy said something, and Buffy caught her own name somewhere in the middle of it—and Xander's.

Xander. He'd followed Oz into the kitchen and was hanging back near the door. "Hey, guys," he said, "Mind speaking English? You're making me paranoid."

"Sorry!" Willow said with a guilty look.

"Hey, don't worry. Welcome home." He went over and looked like he wanted to hug her, but he couldn't quite figure out how to deal with the whole baby situation. He ended up just kissing the top of her head like Oz had done.

"How's Spike?" Willow asked, looking to Oz. From the concern in her voice, Buffy guessed that Willow had been filled in at least a little on last night's misadventure.

"Resting," Oz said. "He's got a low fever and the cold symptoms are worse, but his breathing sounds okay for now."

"You think we should call Dr. Rodrigues?" Kennedy asked. "Make an appointment for him?"

"Already done," Oz said. "She can see him tomorrow at eleven-thirty."

"I'm just going to grab a few things and get back to Spike," Xander said, reaching across the table for one of the bananas Buffy had set in a bowl at the center.

Oz raised an eyebrow. "Why not stay and eat properly? He _will_ be okay on his own for ten minutes. He's pretty much asleep."

Xander's glance darted in Buffy's direction, and she knew he was going to refuse—until Willow spoke up. "Come on, Xander, stay. Buffy made pancakes! And we still have so much to talk about!"

"Okay," he said finally, though he sounded reluctant. "One pancake." Of the two empty chairs, he took the one that wasn't next to Buffy.

"So tell me what it was like being back in Sunnydale!" Willow said. "That must've been so weird. Did you have to use the Lethe's Bramble?"

"Yeah, we did, actually. Dawn cast the spell." Xander reached for the jug of orange juice.

"Dawn?" Willow frowned. "Wouldn't it have been easier for Giles to do it?"

"He didn't think it was safe to do it on himself—" Xander stopped, making a face. "Is this juice okay? It tastes like it's gone off."

"Oh—don't worry, it's fine," Kennedy said. "It's just not as sweet as the American kind."

Xander blinked. "Shit. Spike was complaining about it last night. I thought he was just being cranky."

"Maybe you'd like the pineapple better?" Willow suggested. "I know I do."

"No, that's not—not the point— _fuck_." Xander hunched his shoulders and clenched his fists in front of his forehead. "Fuck. I wasn't even _listening_ to him."

There was a ripple of change in the mood of the room; Kennedy and Oz exchanged a look, and Willow seemed to sit up a little straighter. Buffy didn't quite get why Xander was wigging out over the juice—but at least she had enough sense not to say anything.

"I'm sure it's not a big deal," Willow said, sounding hesitant. "The OJ isn't _that_ bad. And, I mean, he's from England, and I've lived in England, and let me tell you mister, they have some pretty tasteless food there."

Xander didn't look like he'd heard her. "He doesn't ever tell me what's wrong. And then when he does tell me, I don't even—I should've—what if he told me _months_ ago and I wasn't listening because I didn't want to know?" He sounded like he was breaking down. Buffy was confused and a little scared, and so totally not in a position to do anything about it.

To her relief, Oz stood up and went around the table to put his hand on Xander's back. "Hey," he said quietly. "Let's go for a walk."

Xander stood up in a jerky, chair-scraping stumble. "Yeah. Sure," he said, and left the room without a backwards glance. Oz followed, hesitating just long enough to exchange a look Buffy couldn't interpret with Willow and Kennedy.

Kennedy said something to Willow softly in Portuguese. Willow nodded and replied in the same language.

"Could you _not_ do that?" Buffy asked. Her voice sounded brittle to her own ears. "I'm getting major out-of-the-loop feelings over here."

"Oh, Buffy, I'm sorry," Willow said, biting her lip and looking sincerely contrite. "We were just—we speak Portuguese at home usually now, it's sort of a habit."

"Will, what was Xander talking about?"

Willow half-shrugged, careful not to disturb Tara. "I don't know exactly. Hey, I noticed things between you two this morning are a little, um, tense?"

Buffy grimaced. "I messed up big-time when I took Spike out on patrol last night. Xander's kinda furious at me. We had a fight...count yourself lucky we didn't break any dishes."

"Try not to take it too hard." Willow stroked Tara's head with one finger as she spoke. "He's worried about Spike, and it's making him a little crazy, I think. You know that Spike's been sick a lot since he turned human, right?"

"Sort of." Buffy shrugged, picking up her fork to shove the bits of pancake around on her plate with no intention of eating them. "I'd heard he's been in the hospital a couple times. I...well...I sort of avoided hearing any more than I had to, actually. It still kinda hurt to hear his name."

Kennedy rolled her eyes and said something in Portuguese. Willow punched her in the arm. "Sweetie! Not appropriate."

Buffy prickled. "What was that?" she asked Kennedy.

"Nothing." Kennedy rubbed her arm and shot a rueful look in Willow's direction.

"Anyway. It's not your fault if nobody told you," Willow said to Buffy. "We've all sort of drifted since Sunnydale, haven't we? Now that we have a whole world to take care of instead of just one small town."

Buffy realized her pancakes were dissolving, and she put her fork down. "Is it crazy to miss Sunnydale?"

Willow looked thoughtful for a moment before she replied. "No. No more than it's crazy to miss high school, or being a kid with a mother to look after you." She shifted Tara in her arms; Tara had finished drinking and was yawning now. "But life keeps on changing. Some of the changes are good, some bad. I don't think any of us would ever want to go _back_ —but that's not what you meant, is it?"

Buffy shook her head. "I'm not sure what I mean. Willow...can I hold Tara for a little while?"

Willow smiled. "Sure."

Kennedy brought the sleepy baby over and placed her carefully in Buffy's arms. Buffy held her breath. She hadn't held a baby since—well, not since Dawn, actually.

Tara yawned again, and looked up at Buffy. Her eyes were blue, and intelligently alert even in her slow-blinking sleepiness. She felt just right in Buffy's arms—warm and heavy, a little squirmy, almost unbearably precious. "Can I hold her till she falls asleep?" she asked.

"Sure," Kennedy said, giving her some space—and, Buffy realized, perfect trust. "I'll start clearing up breakfast."

Buffy breathed slowly, and mentally pushed away the badness of the morning. There was plenty to worry about later. For now, watching the baby fall asleep, she let herself bask in the deep, instinctive peace.


	9. Chapter 9

"This is it," Buffy said, nudging a piece of trash out of the way with her toe. "Right here, this is where I staked the smallest one." She looked up. "So, Oz? Can you, um, tell which way they came from?"

Kennedy rolled her eyes. For a chick who'd been dating the undead since she was sweet sixteen, Buffy was awfully delicate about some things. The three of them were going to have to have a serious talk before they found themselves any vamps to fight.

If Oz noticed Buffy's unease about bringing up his werewolf side, he didn't show it. "I can't track them by scent, no—not after all the rain."

"So we go hunting," Kennedy said. "And asking around. Those boys Spike talked to knew something, and he wasn't even sure what all they said. I bet other kids have heard things, too. We'll find out more tonight, no problem." She patted her shoulder bag, packed full of candy bars.

There were no children evident in the warehouse district, so the three of them headed for the nearby favela. At the narrow street that divided the two neighborhoods, Kennedy stopped them. "We should split up," she said. "Going in together, we'll scare the kids."

"I can't talk to anyone on my own," Buffy reminded her.

Kennedy nodded. "Right. You stay with me. Oz, try the next street over. If anything happens, signal me."

He nodded. "Give me some candy."

She opened her bag and let him dig out a couple of handfuls of sweet little bribes. "Be careful out there," she said for goodbye.

"You too," he said, his gaze taking in both of them.

As Oz walked away, Buffy turned to Kennedy. "What's the signal?"

In answer, Kennedy tugged on the leather cord that hung around her neck. "Pendant. Willow made them for us. If Oz triggers his, mine will get warm." Hot, actually—she'd felt it before. A sudden blaze of heat against the skin between her breasts. "He's out of sight now. Let's see if we can find some kids to talk to."

As they entered the favela proper, Buffy seemed distracted and uncomfortable. Kennedy wasn't sure what to read into it. The two of them had never been exactly easy with each other, not since Kennedy had first landed in Sunnydale and failed to be an obedient little girl. "Does it make you nervous?" she asked. "Walking into a slum?"

Buffy glared at her. "I was robbed at gunpoint a few blocks from here yesterday. Now I'm being Cautious Buffy."

"Cautious is good," Kennedy agreed. "Just try not to look quite so spooked."

"I'm _not_ ," Buffy insisted. "I've got stuff on my mind."

"Spike?" Kennedy guessed. Oz had given her a quick rundown of yesterday's events.

Buffy winced at the name. "I haven't seen him all day. Xander wouldn't let me."

Kennedy shrugged. "From what I heard, Xander's got a right to be pissed at you. Give it time."

"I _am_. You're the one who brought it up."

That wasn't exactly true, but Kennedy let it go. "Just try to keep your attention on the job we're doing, okay? Deal with the personal shit later."

Buffy stopped walking abruptly. "Kennedy, do you have a problem with me being here? I mean, do you think I'm, like, trespassing on your territory or something?"

"What? No." Kennedy frowned. "What are you getting at, Buffy?"

"Ever since I got here you've been acting like I'm getting on your last nerve just by _breathing_. So, hey, if you want me out of your way—I'm sure you and Oz can handle these mini-vamps. Now that we know that Willow's okay, I can go back to Rome."

Kennedy let out a slow breath. She knew that Buffy was right, and it was sort of embarrassing to get called on it. "Sorry. God, I'm sorry. Look, my girlfriend just had a _baby_. It's kind of been a stressful week."

"Right. Wow. I wasn't even thinking about that." Buffy looked a little sheepish, and Kennedy forced herself not to roll her eyes.

"It takes some getting used to,” Kennedy allowed. "You know, Willow was super happy to see you. And I'm glad you're here to help with the vamps. So if you think you can stand sticking around a bit longer, I'll try to act like less of a jerk."

With an easier feeling between them now, they went back to looking for children to talk to. Further up the street, a few young girls were playing jump-rope with a piece of actual yellow rope. The two girls turning the rope and the four waiting their turns were chanting a skipping rhyme, while the girl in the middle had her face set in concentration. Her bare feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. As the tempo of the other girls' chanting sped up, the repeated thwap of the rope hitting pavement edged towards staccatto, and the central girl's face grew flushed. Finally she fumbled, and stopped, laughing, with the rope tangled around her legs.

When Kennedy walked up to them the girls looked her over, wary and curious. The oldest of them looked maybe ten. She didn't think any of them were street kids—none of them had that haunted, hungry look—but they might've heard rumors. And she was sure they could be bought with candy.

"<Hey,>" she said, stopping just a little ways off. Non-threatening. She held up a piece of the candy she'd brought, and tossed it in a gentle arc to the first girl who looked up and caught her eye. "<Kids have been disappearing,>" she said. "<We're looking for them. Have you heard anything?>"

The girls glanced at each other and giggled shyly. The one who'd caught the candy bar said "<Kids disappear all the time. Grownups don't care. Who are you?>"

"What's she saying?" Buffy asked quietly.

Kennedy shook her head quickly. "Later," she whispered in English. Then, in Portuguese again, "<I'm someone who cares. Where do the kids disappear? Do you know anyone who's gone?>"

The lead girl shrugged, but one of the others, behind her, looked like she wanted to say something. Kennedy gave her an encouraging smile.

"<Catarina disappeared,>" the girl said quietly. She was a skinny little thing in a ragged blue t-shirt and grimy white shorts, hiding half behind the taller, more outspoken girl. "<She used to sell mangos. I saw her almost every day, except last week she wasn't there anymore.>"

"<Do you know where she lived? Did she have parents?>"

The shy girl shook her head, but one of the others spoke up. "<She probably lived in the Hotel.>"

"<What's that?>"

The first girl, the one with the candy clutched in her hand, tilted her chin up and said with an air of authority, "<It's where the street kids live. You can't go in there but I did, one time, and there was a boy with a knife.>"

That sounded like a better lead than anything they had yet. "<Can you take me there?>" Kennedy asked.

"<Sure,>" the girl said.

"Leticia," the girl in the blue t-shirt said, tugging at Leticia's arm, "<You can't go there. Mamae will beat you.>"

Leticia rolled her eyes at the younger girl—her little sister, apparently. "<You won't tell her.>"

"<It's okay, I don't want you to get in trouble,>" Kennedy said. "<How about you just tell me where the Hotel is? I have some paper, maybe you can draw a map.>" She wasn't certain the girl would be able to make anything legible, but she didn't want to risk bringing her into danger if they did find the vampires.

The other girls crowded around to watch Leticia draw her map. It was a group effort; the girls called out suggestions and corrections, and fell over each other giggling with the hilarity of their activity. "<Draw Stinky Pele, he's always at the corner!>" urged a girl with her hair in corn rows. Kennedy handed out candy to all of the girls, and Buffy smiled awkwardly when they glanced curiously at her.

***

Leticia's map was surprisingly accurate, not to mention up-to-date. "What happens if we come back tomorrow and the dead cat is gone?" Buffy asked, keeping her distance from one of the landmarks Leticia had drawn on their path.

Kennedy wrinkled her nose. "Don't worry, I think the flies will still mark the spot."

Their path as marked on the map had a strong resemblance to a scavenger hunt. After the cat, there was the broken red chair, the palm tree with a pair of sneakers hanging from it, and the ten-foot-high graffiti Jesus ... and then they finally came to the Hotel.

It was a two-storey wooden building with boarded-up windows. A faded sign over the door proclaimed it a hotel, to which someone had added in spray paint "Inferno"—Hell's Hotel.

"Swanky," Buffy said, eyeing the peeling facade. "Should we call Oz before we go in?"

Kennedy was about say yes, but she felt a sudden flash of heat against the skin between her breasts. "Change of plans," she said, yanking the leather cord out from under her shirt. "We're going to him." She squeezed the amulet and closed her eyes. Opening her mind the way Willow had taught her, she got a sense of distance and direction. That was enough. "Follow me!"

In following Leticia's map, they'd wandered a long way from Oz. Now Kennedy sprinted down the tight, twisty streets of the favela, hoping they weren't too far away to help. There was no way to tell whether Oz was in serious trouble until they reached him. Kennedy could hear Buffy following close behind her. Their footsteps echoed in a concrete alley, a fast two-layered rhythm made of stylish hard-soled shoes and old army boots. There was a fence to jump at the end of the alley, and Buffy cleared it right behind Kennedy.

They both nearly landed on top of Oz.

"Hi," he said mildly in English, taking a step back to give them room to get to their feet. "Good response time. Catch your breath."

He wasn't alone. There were three boys; two of them had fallen back, startled, at the girls' arrival, but the third continued to lounge unconcerned against a rusty old stove. He took a drag from the cigarette he was holding and then offered it to Oz. "<You know these bitches?>" he asked in Portuguese, totally casual like they'd just met each other at a club. He was a few inches taller than Oz, and gangly in that just-hit-puberty kind of way. 

"<My girlfriend,>" Oz said, breathing out smoke. "<And her cousin from America.>" The smoke was pungent—pot, not tobacco.

Kennedy took the joint when Oz handed it to her, and did as he'd done—took a quick breath in and then let it go before there was time for much effect. The stuff tasted harsh. "<Hi,>" she said to the boy, and draped an arm over Oz's shoulders. That got a funny look from Buffy, so Kennedy offered her the joint, saying in English, "Just play along till we know what's happening."

Buffy wrinkled her nose and backed away like the thing was going to bite her. "Are you kidding? Yuck."

Kennedy shrugged and handed it back to the boy. The other two, who were younger and more scraggly looking, had regained enough confidence to edge back into the circle. They were both clutching handfuls of Oz's candy bars.

The older boy flipped his too-long hair out of his eyes and gave Kennedy a suspicious look before taking another hit, and then turned back to Oz. "<You never answered my question. What do _you_ care about missing street kids? >"

"<I work at a free clinic near here,>" Oz said. "<Kids disappear, we want to know why.>" Then he turned to Buffy. "The biggest one is a vampire," he said, cucumber-cool.

"No kidding," Buffy said, all dry and unimpressed like she'd known all along.

"Right," Kennedy agreed, trying not to let her fingers twitch. 

The older-looking boy, meanwhile, handed the joint to one of the younger ones and roughly tousled his hair. "<Hey, Luis. What do you think? What happens to the kids who disappear?>"

Luis took his share of the joint without choking. "<Fucking police,>" he said. "<I've seen them.>"

"<Me too,>" the other boy added. "<But we're gonna make those fucking pigs pay, next time they fuck with one of us.>" He pulled a knife out of his pocket and flicked the blade open, glowering like he'd been practicing in front of a mirror. "<Ramiro's gonna teach us how to fight.>"

"<That's right, I am,>" said the older boy, the vampire. He gave Kennedy and Buffy a sideways glance, the tip of his tongue sliding along the edge of his teeth, and Kennedy got a prickle down her spine. _He knows what we are_. She was sure of it. From the way Buffy shifted her stance ever so slightly, she seemed to have come to the same conclusion without understanding a word they were saying.

Oz, meanwhile, was focused on the boy with the knife. "<Do you have a safe place to sleep tonight?>" he asked.

Ramiro tossed the stub of the joint to the ground and crushed it under his heel. "<They'll be safe with me.>"

"<Hey, how about we step around the corner and talk about this?>" Kennedy offered, hooking her thumbs in her pockets and giving Ramiro a level stare. She wasn't sure exactly what he was playing at, but it was obviously more than just a hunt; if she could get him away from the boys, maybe she could try a little stake-point interrogation.

“<I don’t think so. We don’t need anything you’re offering.>” Ramiro rolled his shoulders and grinned. “<Luis, Gabriel? Time to learn how to fight.>”

Luis gave Ramiro a startled, uncertain look, but Gabriel, the one with the knife, tucked his candy into his pocket and scowled. “<I’m ready.>”

“<You don’t have to do this,>” Oz said to Gabriel, standing his ground. “<We can get you away from him.>”

Gabriel made a little slash in the air with his knife. “<Back the fuck off, Americano.>”

Ramiro was still grinning wide. The skinny little vampire was insane if he thought he could take on two Slayers, not to mention a werewolf. Kennedy was just worried about the two boys getting scared off by the fight; she wanted to know everything Ramiro had told them. “<Hey Ramiro,>” she said. “<What’s your plan? Hide behind the children till we get bored and go home?>”

Ramiro met her mocking with a look of cool fury. “<Not exactly.>” He lifted one hand over his head and snapped his fingers twice. “<Meet the children of Sao Paulo.>”

A clatter overhead gave just seconds of warning. Kennedy looked up and saw four—no, five—no, _six_ ragged children clearing the edge of the building above them, jumping down into the alley. They were all in vamp face.

Buffy had a stake in her hand. “Hey, Kennedy? I haven’t exactly been following the dialogue. Are we ready to start slaying?”

It was a rhetorical question. She spun around before she even finished her question, and punched a girl-vampire that was rushing her from behind.

They were surrounded. A couple of the new vampires had landed between Kennedy’s group and the fence, while the rest filled the mouth of the alley. The two human boys were trapped as well, and Kennedy made a quick call. “Oz, get the boys out of here. Buffy and I will dust these vamplets.” Oz would have to change before he could fight at full strength, and the last thing they needed right now was to confuse Gabriel and Luis by blurring the line between demons and rescuers.

A vamp grabbed Kennedy’s shoulder bag and nearly yanked her off-balance. Kennedy grabbed the stake she’d had tucked at the small of her back and tried to plunge it into the little vampire’s chest. The vampire dodged her strike, letting go of the bag. Kennedy pulled the strap off over her head and threw the bag at another vampire to distract him.

A quick glance told her that Oz wasn’t going to be able to get the human boys out of the way without some help. There were three vampires converging on him—and then another two jumped down from a rooftop a few feet away. Jesus _Christ_ , how many mini-vamps were they going to have to fight? Buffy was fending off three of them herself, including Ramiro. Kennedy was distracted for a moment by the sheer grace of Buffy’s fighting. There might be hundreds of Slayers in the world right now, but Buffy was still _the_ Slayer—the oldest, the strongest, the best. Damn it. Two of Buffy’s opponents exploded into dust almost simultaneously, but Ramiro caught her with a spin-kick before she could make it three-for-three. Then Kennedy had to duck fast to avoid a glass bottle another vamp threw at her face. It shattered against the brick wall behind her and the glass crunched under her feet when she backed away. _This_ was why she wore fucking army boots. “Watch for the glass!” she called out to Buffy, and then spun around and finally staked the little beast that had thrown it. Another puff of dust meant one vampire less, but three more had just jumped down from roof-level to join the fight.

Oz had the two human boys behind him, between him and the wall, and he was fending off attacks from all sides with a broomstick he’d picked up off the ground. He was still fully human—he wouldn’t want to go wolfy in front of the boys. “Little help here?” he called out to Kennedy.

Kennedy started to go to him. A pint-sized vampire got in her way, a little girl with pigtails and yellow eyes. Kennedy seized the girl by the shoulders and, ignoring the raking of fingernails down her arms, tossed her aside. Behind Oz, the two human boys looked terrified. Gabriel was still clutching his little knife, not that it would do him any good against a vampire. Oz managed to plunge the jagged broken end of the broomstick into the chest of one of his attackers. The vampire went _poof_. Behind Oz, Gabriel darted forward with his knife and—and plunged it into Oz’s back. 

_Fuck_.

Oz stumbled forward, gasping. Kennedy got there in time to stake a vampire that was closing in on him. Gabriel, eyes wild, tried to stab _her_. Kennedy blocked the knife with her left hand and then caught the little bastard with a right hook, not holding anything back. He went down like a rag doll. Luis had flattened himself against the brick wall, looking like he didn’t know which way to run, and Oz had fallen to his knees. Buffy was holding off four vampires on her own, and two others were headed for Oz. Ramiro was hanging back from the fight now, watching it all with a shit-eating grin. Kennedy grabbed Oz’s arm and yanked him out of the way of a vampire’s kick. “Change, dammit!” she shouted at him, and then pushed him behind her so she could elbow the oncoming vampire in the face. It was one of the bigger ones, with the body of maybe a fifteen-year-old boy. Kennedy bloodied his nose and he came back at her with a roar. She ducked his first punch but the second one caught her hard; she absorbed the impact the best she could, blinking back tears. “Oz, _change_!”

Oz hunched forward and shuddered. Kennedy wasn’t sure if that was good or bad until she saw, with relief, dark fur sprouting all along the backs of his arms. Thank _God_. In his half-wolf form he was almost as strong as she was, and had healing powers closer to a vampire’s than to a human’s. He still might be messed up from the wound, but at least he could protect himself.

“Kennedy!” Buffy shouted from across the alley, sounding suddenly panicked. “What’s happening to Oz?!”

Kennedy realized she’d never got around to explaining Oz’s powers to Buffy. Crap. “Don’t worry!” she shouted back, fending off a vampire. “It’s under control.”

“He’s going all wolfy!”

“It’s _okay_!” Kennedy shouted back. She tried to stake the vampire but she missed, and it got her stake away from her. Fuck. And then Oz leapt at the vampire from behind and took it down. He and the vampire rolled over each other on the dirty ground, snarling and snapping. Kennedy spun around in time to save herself getting grabbed by the vampire whose nose she’d broken. She kicked him in the belly and backed off, trying to spot her stake. She saw Oz’s dropped broomstick first, and grabbed it.

They were down to five un-dusted vampires, and Ramiro wasn’t looking so happy anymore. “Ivo!” he shouted. The boy-vampire with the broken nose glanced back at him. “<Get the recruit out of here! Take him to Carlos!>”

Ivo spun and grabbed Luis by an arm. “<Come on!>” he said. With just one desperate backwards glance at the still form of his friend Gabriel, Luis let Ivo pull him towards the far side of the alley. Ivo got his hands under Luis’s feet and tossed the kid up onto the same roof that the vampires had jumped down from—just before Kennedy sent the broomstick into his back, javelin-style. The vampire dusted, and so did the broomstick.

“<Stay up there!>” Kennedy shouted to Luis. One way or another he was better off out of the fight, and after what his friend had done to Oz, she sure as hell didn’t want him at her back.

“Kennedy!” Buffy shouted. “On the fence!”

Ramiro had climbed up onto the fence that divided the alley. He paused there, balanced like a cat, just long enough to catch Kennedy’s eye. “<The children of Sao Paulo are coming for you,>” he said, unconcerned as she sprinted towards him. “<You haven’t won.>” She grabbed for his feet but he jumped away, doing a full flip up onto the roof where Luis was waiting.

Biting back a curse, Kennedy spun back around for a status check. Buffy was fighting just one vampire now, a girl who looked like she was dressed for the Miss Slutty Teenage Vampire pageant in painted-on jeans and a halter top. Oz and the last vampire were still going at it; without a stake, Oz wouldn’t be able to dust the vampire, but he could hold his own until Buffy was free to help. Kennedy turned back to the fence and hoisted herself up, and then did a careful run along the narrow board to the edge of the building. She jumped high enough to catch the roof’s edge with her fingers, and then pulled herself up fast in case anybody—anything—was waiting for her.

She was alone on the tar-paper roof. She did a quick 360, looking for her prey. There were no streetlights up here, but the full moon gave enough light for her to catch two figures climbing up onto a slightly higher building, fifty feet away.

The full moon. Fuck. She’d forgotten about that. It would make Oz stronger, which was good, but it would also make it a lot harder for him to stay in control of the change—especially since he was hurt.

Kennedy took one more look at the fleeing vampire and his—victim? friend? whatever—taking note of their direction. And then she went back to the roof’s edge and dropped into the alley.

The vampires were all gone. Buffy, who had a rip in her shirt but otherwise looked undamaged, was keeping herself a good ten feet from Oz. She wasn’t holding a weapon, but her guard was still up. Kennedy saw that Buffy had put herself between Oz and Gabriel, who was still lying on the ground. Oz was hunched over, growling and whimpering. He was further into the change than he had been before; his fingernails had gone completely to claw, and the fur covered most of his face.

Kennedy went straight to him. “Kennedy, be careful,” she heard Buffy saying behind her.

“It’s okay, he’s not going to hurt me,” Kennedy said. She touched Oz’s face, and he flinched. “It’s okay,” she said again, talking to him this time. She pitched her voice low, soothing. “You’re safe. I’m here.” He was trembling. She hoped this would work; she’d never tried to bring him back before when he was hurt _and_ the moon was full. It would be better if Willow were here. Willow could reach right inside of his mind if she had to. Cautiously, Kennedy slipped her arms around him. She had to trust him, if she wanted him to trust her. “Shhhh, sweetie. It’s all right. Try to breathe slowly.”

He did as she told him. Kennedy tried to match the speed of her breathing to his, to help him with the calming meditation, though really she wanted to hold her breath until she knew for sure that he wouldn’t rip her throat out. She could hear Buffy moving, but she didn’t look up.

When it finally worked, it happened quickly. The coarse wolf hair retreated and the planes of Oz’s face shifted back into flat human features. His eyes gleamed yellow for just one moment longer, and then they were blue. “Thanks,” he croaked.

“Fuck, you scared me,” Kennedy whispered, and then she kissed him.

Oz kissed her back for just a moment before he pulled away. “Is Buffy okay?”

 _Buffy._ Shit. Buffy wasn’t supposed to see them—Kennedy turned, still keeping an arm around Oz, and saw Buffy staring at them.

“Well, I _was_ okay,” she said.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Kennedy said quickly. Which was a stupid thing to say, she realized even as the words were spilling out of her mouth, since it _was_ pretty much exactly what it looked like, only more so.

“It looks like you’re cheating on my best friend,” Buffy said, her voice rising.

“Okay, it’s _really_ not what it looks like,” Kennedy said, and then stopped, stuck, because she couldn’t explain any further without breaking her promise to Willow. “Help me out here...” she begged Oz under her breath.

“Let’s talk about this when I’m not bleeding,” Oz suggested levelly.

“Oh God.” Kennedy couldn’t believe she’d forgotten for a moment that he was hurt. “Turn around, let me see.”

“Wait,” he put a hand on her arm. “What happened to the two boys?”

“Ramiro ran away with one of them,” Kennedy said. “The other one’s over there.”

“He’s breathing,” Buffy added. “We have to get him to a hospital or something. It doesn’t look like any of them bit him.”

“No kidding,” Kennedy said. “ _I’m_ the one who knocked him out.”

Buffy looked at her, shocked. “But he’s human. I felt his pulse.”

“Yeah, that didn’t stop him from stabbing Oz in the back.” Kennedy glared down at the kid. The knife was still lying not far from his hand. “I think we should leave him here for the fucking vampires.”

“Hey! How was he supposed to know that Oz was a _good_ werewolf?” Buffy said. Oz, meanwhile, had gently disentangled himself from Kennedy and was limping towards Gabriel. Buffy made an incomplete move to stop him, but then apparently decided that even if Kennedy had gone insane, Oz hadn’t. She stepped aside, and Oz knelt beside the boy.

“Oz was _human_ when Gabriel stabbed him,” Kennedy said, clenching her fists. There was a dark wet spot the size of two spread hands on the back of Oz’s t-shirt.

Oz had pulled something out of his pocket—his key ring, which had a little LED flashlight on it. He pushed open Gabriel’s eyes and shone the light into them, one at a time. “He’s badly concussed,” he said. “He does need to go to a hospital.”

“Fuck him,” Kennedy said. “ _You_ need to go to a hospital.”

“Wait, _why_ did that kid stab Oz?” Buffy asked, frustration edging into her voice. “I don’t understand what’s going on here, with them or with you, or—and Kennedy, we can’t leave a little boy for vampires to eat!”

“Why not?” Kennedy snapped. “It’s what he wanted. _That’s_ what was going on here. That vampire was picking up recruits, and Gabriel was so eager to join the gang that he didn’t even wait to get turned first before he started trying to kill us.”

“And if we leave him for the vampires, they get one more killer on their side,” Oz pointed out. “One of you will have to carry him to the car. We can take him to the clinic where I work.”

Kennedy still felt her insides clenching when she looked at the boy, but Oz had a point. Plus, Oz could get treated at the clinic too. “Okay. Buffy, you carry Gabriel. If he wakes up, make sure he doesn’t try to, like, strangle you or something.” She lifted Oz’s arm over her shoulders and helped him stand up. He didn’t quite manage to stifle a gasp of pain, and Kennedy looked at him with real worry. “I can carry you, if you want.”

He leaned heavily against her, but shook his head. “There’ll be too many people around to see once we get out of the alley.”

Buffy picked up Gabriel. His long, skinny limbs dangled awkwardly, but he looked like he could be sleeping. She gave Kennedy a guarded look, and said, “Ready to go?” 

There were going to be interesting discussions when they got back home, that was for sure. Fuck. For now, all that Kennedy cared about was getting her lover to safety. Willow wouldn’t be happy when she found out what Buffy had seen, but—fuck, Oz was bleeding. Nothing else was important right now. “Let’s go,” she said.


	10. Chapter 10

“So then Giles told me he wished I’d been the one in charge of the evacuation.” Xander said. “He thinks I’m good at planning stuff, can you believe it?”

"Ow," Willow said.

"Huh?"

“Sorry.” She made a tiny motion with her shoulder, hinting at a shrug without disturbing her suckling baby. “It wasn’t you. I just felt my uterus contracting.”

Xander winced reflexively. “TMI.”

“What? You don’t even _have_ a uterus.”

“And thank God for that,” Xander said, crossing himself in an exaggerated gesture.

Willow rolled her eyes at him, grinning. “No fair, I can’t punch you while I’m holding Tara. And since when are you Catholic?”

“When in Rome....” Xander deadpanned.

“Tell you what. I’ll get Kennedy to punch you when she gets home.”

“Okay, now I’m scared.”

“Don’t be.” Willow’s smile softened. “She talks tough, but on the inside she’s really a pussycat.”

Xander shifted closer so he could touch Willow’s cheek. “God, Will, it’s great to see you so happy.”

Willow made a contented noise. “Everything’s just really good right now,” she said, gazing down at Tara. Then she turned to Xander, her smile fading. “I wish you could have that, too.”

Xander backed off again, hugging himself without really meaning to. “It’s better than it was. Spike makes it better.”

“Well, good, because otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense for you to be dating him, would it?” she teased. “But ... you’re worried _about_ him.”

“We’re in a foreign country and he’s sick. So, yeah.”

“No, I mean ... in general. Not just now. It’s been hard on you.”

Xander hesitated. The habit of not talking about it was deeply ingrained. Around Spike, the subject was taboo. But this was Willow. “Yeah.” He ducked his head, stared at his knees. “Okay, yeah. It’s ... it’s like I’m always kind of holding my breath, you know? Waiting for the next thing to go wrong. And I feel so ... _helpless_. And now here Oz is telling me he thinks it’s even worse than we know, and ... I’m scared, Will.”

Willow managed to shift her hold on Tara so that she could let go with one hand and give Xander’s arm a comforting squeeze. “Maybe he’ll get better after this,” she said. “Maybe Dr. Rodrigues will be able to find out what’s wrong.”

“Fuck, Will, we _know_ what’s wrong. He came back wrong. It’s something to do with the Shanshu. This should be a _Scooby_ problem. We should be bringing the troops into the school library and pulling out the giant dusty books and flipping the pages until we figure out how to fix it.”

“Giles and I _have_ talked about it,” Willow said softly. “Back when we first found out that Spike was alive—remember, he had pneumonia, and Kennedy and I went to L.A. to be with him when you went to South Africa? Giles even found a copy of the Shanshu prophecies. We couldn’t find anything that helped. Angel thinks it might be like it was with Darla—that Spike was sick before he was turned, only he just didn’t know it.”

“I know, I know,” Xander said. “I’ve talked with Giles about it. But Angel’s theory totally doesn’t make sense—for one thing, Darla was brought back by evil lawyers, not by some kind of fucking miracle. For another, Spike _wasn’t_ sick before he was turned. At least, not like he is now. He didn’t get sick all the time, he didn’t get migraines, he didn’t have asthma. I know it’s been a long time, but he’d remember things like that.”

Willow looked thoughtful. “Maybe it’s some environmental trigger? Like, some chemical that’s around now that he’s sensitive to, something that didn’t exist when he was human before?”

Xander shook his head. “His doctor in London did a bunch of tests for that kind of thing. So I don’t think so. It was a good theory, though. That’s what we need more of. Good theories. Research parties. But instead, everybody’s _ignoring_ it.”

“Xander, sweetie, we’re not,” Willow insisted. “Giles and I did as much as we could. But it was a dead end.”

“So you gave up.”

“We had to.”

“We didn’t even give up on Buffy when she was _dead_.”

Willow winced. “Yes. Right. And that went well.”

“It _did_ ,” Xander said. “Come on, Will. Maybe it sucked for her at first, but ask her when she gets back here if she’d rather be dead.”

Willow lifted her head at the sound of a car coming to a stop outside. “They’re back,” she said. “Xander, I promise, we’ll all do everything we can for him.”

The door opened. Kennedy and Oz came in first; she was half-carrying him. 

“Oh my God, what happened?” Willow gasped, sitting bolt upright.

Buffy followed them in and shut the door. She looked unhurt, but distraught. Kennedy had bright red scratches down both of her forearms, but she didn’t seem to be seriously injured. Oz, on the other hand, looked like he was barely holding on to consciousness. 

“Knife,” Oz said.

Kennedy looked angry and scared. “A vampire wannabe stabbed him in the back. It’s pretty bad. Will, we’re gonna need you.”

Willow stood up, still holding Tara. “Right. Right, okay. Um, Xander? Take Tara?”

Xander reached out reflexively to take the baby. “Wait, where are you going?”

Snapping up her nursing bra, Willow exchanged a look with Kennedy. “Oz’s room?” 

Kennedy nodded. “Buffy, help me carry him.”

“Okay,” Xander said, “I know I’m not the local expert or anything, but don’t we usually take people to the hospital when they get stabbed?” But nobody was listening to him; Buffy had tucked herself under Oz’s other shoulder and was helping Kennedy carry him out of the room, while Willow had run ahead on some mission of her own.

Tara hiccupped, and then started to cry.

“Burp her!” Willow called out unseen from the hallway.

“What?” Xander looked down at the squirming bundle in his arms. “Oh God.”

He stood up and thought of the movie “Three Men and a Baby.” What would Ted Danson do?

Ted Danson would find out what was happening in the other room, that’s what he’d do. Xander put Tara over his shoulder and, rubbing her back, went into the hall. Kennedy was just leaving Oz’s room. “I’m going to the shed,” she said by way of non-explanation, brushing by him.

Tara had stopped crying. “You like that, huh?” Xander said under his breath, rubbing her back in the other direction now. “Glad I’m good for something.” And suddenly his shoulder felt extra warm, and wet. “Oh, no.” Xander stepped into the doorway to Oz’s room. “Willow? Willow!”

Oz was lying flat on his narrow bed, eyes closed, face pale. Buffy was standing back with her arms crossed, looking worried, while Willow was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, touching his face. “Xander, keep Tara away from here,” Willow snapped without looking at him.

Xander started to protest, but Buffy intervened. “Come on,” she said, guiding him out by the elbow. “Willow and Kennedy are going to handle this.”

“But something’s wrong with Tara,” Xander finally managed to say. “She just puked all over me.”

Buffy gave him an exasperated look that verged on affectionate. “She spat up. It’s normal. Have you ever looked after a baby before, like, _ever_?”

“Tony and Jessica stopped at one,” Xander reminded her.

“Give her to me. Come on, let’s go to the bathroom and clean you up.”

In the bathroom Xander handed Tara over, careful to support her tiny head until Buffy had a good hold on her. “Okay, maybe now you can tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Get one of the small towels from under the sink for me, okay?” Buffy said. She was bouncing a little, holding the baby; Tara seemed to like it.

“Here,” Xander said, getting one for her. As Buffy put the towel over her shoulder to save her shirt from a fate like Xander’s, Kennedy passed by the open door on her way to Oz’s bedroom. She was carrying a gun. “Jesus Christ,” Xander squeaked.

Buffy followed his gaze and quickly stepped in front of him to stop him from leaving the bathroom. “It’s a tranq gun,” she said. “In case Oz loses control over the change.”

“What change?” Xander asked, and then his brain caught up. “Oh. Werewolf. Right. _That’s_ why you didn’t take him to a hospital.”

“Actually we _did_ ,” Buffy said. “But then Oz wouldn’t go in. Kennedy was pretty upset about it. They had this big argument in Portuguese. Then they told me we were coming home because he’ll heal faster when he’s half wolfy.” She looked worried, but she was keeping her voice light and soft, rocking the baby.

“What do you mean ‘half wolfy’?”

“He can stop changing halfway now. So he can fight with, um, werewolf strength, but still keep control over himself so he only tries to kill the vampires, and not—us.”

“Oh. Wow.” Xander glanced towards Oz’s room, which didn’t tell him anything since Xander still couldn’t see through walls. “Well that’s ... great, right?”

“Right!” Buffy’s reply was overly perky—like she wasn’t so sure herself, but she was trying to see the good. “It’s like he has a new superpower. And we needed all the power we could get in that fight—I mean, with the kiddie vamps. They’re small, but there’s a lot of them.”

“So you found them?” Xander asked. Nobody had told him yet what had actually happened out there tonight.

“We found _some_ of them,” Buffy said. “We interrupted a recruitment drive.”

“Come again?”

Buffy shook her head, frowning. “I still don’t totally understand it myself. There was a lot of talking before the fighting. There were a couple of human boys with this one vampire, and I guess that they _wanted_ to be made into vampires? One of the boys stabbed Oz.”

“Oh man.” Xander winced. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.” Buffy shifted Tara in her arms. “Kennedy hit him—the boy I mean—hard enough to give him a concussion. We left him at the clinic. She wants to go back tomorrow and question him. I don’t think she should go alone.” She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I’m kind of scared of what she might do to him.”

Xander raised an eyebrow. “C’mon, Buff. She wouldn’t hurt a kid.”

“She already _did_ ,” Buffy reminded him.

“In the middle of a fight. That’s different.”

“She said we should leave him in the street for the vamps to get.” Buffy’s voice caught in her throat.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” Xander said, though he wasn’t so sure himself. He knew Buffy a whole lot better than he knew Kennedy—or at least he used to—and she wouldn’t get upset over nothing.

“ _I’m_ not sure.” Buffy looked down at Tara, visibly trying to keep herself calm. “She was really upset about Oz getting hurt.”

“Okay, but she’ll be calmer tomorrow.”

Buffy looked like she was about to say something else, but she didn’t—just shrugged and rocked the baby, looking worried.

Xander took a kleenex from the box on the counter beside the sink, wet it, and started trying to clean off his shoulder. The bathroom was pretty small; he could hear Buffy breathing. It would make sense for her to leave now, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to. Like there was something else she wanted to say. Xander could take a guess at what was on her mind. “Spike said I shouldn’t be mad at you,” he said, looking at his shirt in the mirror instead of at her. “He said it was, and I quote, his own bloody awful decision to go out last night.”

“I talked him into it,” Buffy said quietly.

Xander let out a short, harsh laugh. “You can’t talk Spike into doing anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“Xander....” Buffy trailed off.

Xander looked at her, and waited. She was biting her lip. Xander could tell there was something that she was really reluctant to say, but wanted to say anyway. Xander’s heartbeat sped up as her hesitation started to scare him; was it something about Spike? Something about _her_ and Spike?

“I think Kennedy and Oz are having an affair,” she said.

“What?!” Xander turned around so fast he banged his hip on the sink. “Ow!”

“Shhh, shhhh!” Buffy shushed him frantically.

“Kennedy’s gay,” Xander hiss-whispered.

“They kissed right in front of me.”

“Are you sure? On the lips? Not one of those we’re-so-European-now kisses on the cheek?”

Buffy shook her head, looking pale. “Serious lip-lock.”

“But—did they know you could see them?”

“I think they forgot. It was kind of an intense moment. And then Kennedy said it wasn’t what it looked like.”

Xander felt his stomach sinking. God, poor Willow. “We have to say something.”

“I know. But not tonight.” 

Xander looked towards Oz’s room again. “Right. Wait until the crisis is over. Isn’t that, like, our motto or something?” 

Buffy glanced down at Tara, who was yawning. “I think I should put Tara to bed now. I’ll stay with her in Willow and Kennedy’s room.”

Xander nodded. “If you need any help, just wake me up, okay?”

Buffy gave him a grateful look. “I’m glad you’re here, Xander. Really, really glad. And I’m so sorry about yesterday.”

Xander hugged her, careful not to disturb the baby. He couldn’t say that it was all okay, because it wasn’t. But he never could stay mad at Buffy.

***

After Buffy disappeared into the master bedroom with Tara, Xander lingered in the hall outside of Oz’s door for a minute, trying to see if he could hear what was going on in there. He could hear soft voices—Kennedy and Willow, talking. He couldn’t make out any words, couldn’t even tell if they were speaking English. But they didn’t sound panicked or anything, so he had to assume everything was okay. He touched the door with his fingers, wondering what he would see if he opened it. Maybe it was better not to find out. He turned around and headed for the guest bedroom.

He opened the door carefully, not wanting to wake Spike. The bedroom was flooded with silvery moonlight. One of the curtains was pulled half-back. Spike was slouched in the armchair, staring out the window, with Kennedy's iPod cradled absently in one hand.

Xander came in and shut the door. "Spike? How long have you been up?"

Spike didn't make any sign he'd heard. The volume on the iPod had to be cranked up pretty high, considering how much of the sound was carrying across the room. He didn't even react to Xander’s presence until Xander went over and waved his hand in front of Spike's face. Then he turned a distracted, blinking stare on Xander and palmed one of the ear buds. "Did you say something, luv?"

“I asked how long you’ve been up.”

Spike shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. Slept half the day, didn't I?"

“Did you hear any of the excitement just now?”

Spike gave him a blank look, and pointed to the iPod.

“No, huh. God. Okay, um, Buffy and Kennedy and Oz found some more of the mini-vamps. And Oz got stabbed. They’ve got him in his bedroom now and they’re doing some kind of werewolf healing ritual, I guess.”

Spike sat up straighter, concern showing on his face. “Is he badly hurt? It’s a full moon tonight, you know.”

“Does that matter?” Outside the window, Xander could see the moon through the thin, hanging branches of a willow tree. It looked like a Japanese painting. “I thought he learned to ignore the moon years ago.”

“He can never _ignore_ it, he’s a bloody werewolf. What he can do is keep control over it, like reining in your temper when some berk cuts you off in traffic. But the wolf in him will be at its strongest tonight.”

“How do you know all this?”

Spike shrugged. “Talked about it with the girls when they stayed with me in L.A. that time. And Dog-boy here isn’t the first werewolf I’ve met.” He paused to blow his nose, and tossed the tissue in the direction of an overflowing trash basket. “I don’t envy _him_ tonight. Probably can’t use any painkillers, can’t afford to get fuzzy in the head.”

Xander hadn’t thought about that. It maybe explained better why Oz hadn’t wanted to go to a hospital. “I hope he manages to keep it together. I don’t think they even have a cage here.”

Spike looked unconcerned. “Nothing’ll happen that two Slayers and a witch can’t handle.”

Xander didn’t share his confidence. It wasn’t a question of strength; he was worried about the powder-keg of horrible messy relationship issues that they were all sitting on. He didn’t want to tell Spike what Buffy had told him, though. It would feel too much like nasty gossip, and besides, deep down he was a little afraid that Spike might not be as outraged about it as he and Buffy were.

Spike turned his music back on and went back to staring out the window while Xander shed his clothes. Xander tapped him on the shoulder when he was down to his boxers. “Come to bed with me?”

Spike shook his head. “Go ahead. I’ll just wait until I get sleepy again.”

Xander took the iPod out of Spike’s hand and looked at the display. "Listening to The Offspring at maximum volume: not known for its soporific effects."

Spike snatched the iPod back and raised an eyebrow at Xander. “Nice vocabulary word. You been reading Andrew’s word-a-day calendar again?”

“Don’t change the subject. You’re keeping yourself awake. Why?”

Spike shrugged and evaded eye contact. He hunched over and coughed.

“Dammit, Spike.” Xander crouched in front of Spike and squeezed his hand. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Spike sighed and met Xander’s gaze with shadowed eyes. “Was dreaming about Dru again.”

“Oh, shit.”

“It’s all right. I just don’t want to go right back to sleep.”

Xander could understand Spike’s reluctance. He didn’t have nightmares very often anymore himself, but he could remember a time when he couldn’t even face the prospect of unconsciousness without drinking himself into a stupor first. “Okay. Just come to bed. We don’t have to sleep.”

Spike cocked his head to the side, looking suddenly interested. “Are you offering me a shag?”

Xander bit his lip, a little uncertain. “If you feel up to it.”

Spike answered by leaning forward and kissing Xander, hard.

Xander hadn’t even been thinking about sex before he’d suggested it to Spike, but it took his body just seconds to get enthusiastically behind the idea. It had been way too long since the last time they’d fucked.

They stood up and peeled off each others’ remaining clothes without stopping the frantic kissing. Spike was making those desperate little _fuck-me-now_ sounds that Xander loved so much, and his cock was rock-hard against Xander’s hip. So they were in agreement about it having been too long.

“Top or bottom?” Xander gasped against Spike’s throat as they tumbled onto the bed together.

“Don’t care,” Spike answered, just as breathless. “Long as you do all the work. ‘M sick, you know.”

“Ha. Lazy, you mean.” Of course Spike _was_ sick, but it was better to joke about it. Xander rolled him over onto his back and then realized he’d have to get out of bed to get the lube from their luggage. “Hang on.”

It took a minute or two of frantic digging to find the bottle. Neither Spike nor Xander had a talent for organized packing. When Xander finally turned back to the bed, Spike was stroking his cock and watching Xander with a predatory smirk.

Xander raised an eyebrow. “Enjoying the view?”

“Always, pet. You should walk around naked more often.”

“Yeah, Willow and Kennedy would love that.”

“Maybe they would.”

Xander shut him up with a kiss, because that was a very don’t-go-there kind of comment. If he let Spike know it bugged him, Spike would want to stay on the topic just to watch him squirm.

He wanted to be gentle, but Spike urged him on with a combination of invective and not-so-gentle caresses. Soon Xander was inside of Spike, fucking him energetically.

“God, yeah, that’s it pet,” Spike gasped, banging his head back against the pillow.

“Shhh.” Xander put his hand over Spike’s mouth. “Almost everyone in this house has supernaturally enhanced senses.” From the look in Spike’s eyes, Xander know he wasn’t going to be able to safely remove his hand.

Spike squirmed under Xander and moaned against his palm.

“What’s that? You want me to stop?” Xander froze mid-thrust, giving Spike his own version of an evil grin, and didn’t move his hand.

Spike’s eyes went very wide and he tried to shake his head. “Fuggin’ ‘ell,” he said, all muffled.

Xander laughed and started moving again. “Just kidding.”

***

Afterwards, Xander cleaned them both up while Spike lay back with a lazy grin. “That was nice,” he said. “I feel much better.”

“Good.” Xander tried to fix his ponytail, gave up, and let the hair go loose. “Think you’ll be able to sleep okay now?”

Spike hesitated before answering. “Not sure. I still can’t get her out of my mind.”

Xander felt his happy glow fading fast. “Buffy?”

Spike gave him a strange look. “No, Dru.”

“Oh. Right.” He lay down alongside Spike and pulled the blankets up over him. “Come on, let me hold you. It’ll be all right.”

“Love you, pet,” Spike said softly.

“I love you too.” Xander tucked his arm behind Spike’s head and let Spike snuggle against his shoulder. “And I’ll keep you safe tonight, Spike. I promise.”


	11. Chapter 11

The guest room faced east and Spike had left the curtains pulled back when they’d gone to bed last night. Therefore, Xander was aware of the sunrise. The room slowly took on depth and detail. The well-padded armchair by the window separated itself from the shadows. The paisley wallpaper reappeared. Birds started chirping outside the window.

This gradual return of the world to wakefulness paralleled an opposite effect in Spike. With the first light of false dawn he finally drifted into peaceful sleep in Xander’s arms.

Xander felt like he’d just closed his eye for a moment when he woke up to a *tap* *tap* *tap* at the bedroom door. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon outside in the gap between two houses.

He wanted to shout “Go away!” but that might wake Spike up, and besides, considering everything that had happened last night, this could easily be an emergency. He pulled on a pair of boxers on his way to the door.

It was Buffy on the other side in her pajamas, with impressive bed-head and shadowed eyes. “You awake?” she asked in a whisper.

“No, I’m sleepwalking,” Xander whispered back. It was meant for a sarcastic comeback, but it came out sounding uncomfortably close to literal truth. He stepped out into the hall and shut the door behind him. “What is it?”

“Oz and Kennedy are asleep. Willow’s feeding Tara. I think this might be our only chance to talk to her today.”

“Oh.” Xander leaned against the wall and rubbed his one gritty eye. “Christ, what time is it?”

“Six thirty-ish.” 

Xander groaned. “I think I only got to sleep about a half an hour ago.”

Buffy stifled a yawn. “I feel your pain. I was up half the night with Tara. Why couldn’t _you_ sleep?”

Xander shrugged. “Too much excitement.” He didn’t think Spike would want Buffy to know about the violent nightmares that had gripped him every time he’d drifted off to sleep. He’d even tried to hide them from Xander, but Xander was the light sleeper in the relationship and he’d heard Spike getting out of bed. In the end Spike had spent most of the night wrapped up in a blanket on the easy chair, blasting his eardrums with the iPod, while Xander read through a stack of comics he’d borrowed from Oz and kept an uneasy eye on his lover.

They found Willow in her bed, lying on her side and nursing Tara with some pillows propped around her for comfort. She looked sleepy and happy, and Xander wished like hell that he and Buffy didn’t have such bitter news to break to her. “Hi, Willow.”

She looked up and smiled. “Hey, guys. Up already?”

“Yeah,” Xander said vaguely, perching on the edge of the bed. “How’s Oz?”

“All better.” Weariness and relief mingled in Willow’s tone, with an edge of triumph. “He’s never held on to the half-wolf form for so long before. It was pretty hard, but I helped him stay in the trance.” Stroking Tara’s head, she added, “Thanks so much for looking after the baby, Buffy. I don’t know what we would have done if you weren’t here.”

Buffy looked flustered. “You’re welcome. I mean, it was fun. She’s sweet.”

Willow laughed softly. “Of course she’s sweet. She’s my baby! But getting up at two in the morning to feed her my breast milk out of a cup—that’s above and beyond normal best friend duties.”

“A cup?” Xander repeated, momentarily distracted from his awful anticipation. “Wouldn’t a bottle be easier?”

Willow shook her head. “No, no, not in the first six weeks. We don’t want to give her nipple confusion.”

Xander winced. “I think I’m turning into a girl just by participating in this conversation.”

“We’ll have to check with Spike later and find out,” Willow said with an impish grin. “Hey, Buffy, wanna braid Xander’s hair? You’ll have to get it started—I’ve got my hands full.”

Xander cleared his throat. If they were going to get to the point, somebody was going to have to take the plunge. Not to mix a metaphor or anything. “Listen, Will, Buffy and I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“But it can wait,” Buffy interrupted him quickly. “Until you’ve finished feeding Tara, at least.”

Willow frowned, looking a little concerned. “This’ll take another half hour at least. Can’t you tell me now?”

Buffy still looked hesitant. “I don’t think we should talk about it in front of the baby,” she said to Xander.

“She’s three days old. It’s not like she’s going to know what we’re talking about.”

“Guys?” Willow interrupted. “You’re starting to make me nervous.”

Xander couldn’t reassure her. What they were about to tell her was probably worse than anything she was imagining. But they couldn’t let her go on _not_ knowing—then they’d be betraying her as much as Kennedy was. “Will, I’m so sorry,” he said. “But Buffy saw something last night.”

Buffy looked like she wanted to escape the room, but she took a breath and stepped up to the bed, putting a hand over Willow’s. “Last night after the fight, Kennedy kissed Oz.”

Willow looked blank for a moment, like she couldn’t process what she’d just heard, like she couldn’t figure out what to say. Then she gave them an uncomfortable little smile and said “Is that all?”

“It wasn’t a peck on the cheek,” Buffy clarified. “It was full-on lip-lock. Will, I’m pretty sure she’s cheating on you.”

“Oh!” Willow’s eyes went wide. “No, no. Don’t worry. I mean, it’s sweet of you guys to worry and everything, but it’s really fine. They just do that sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Did they _tell_ you that?” Buffy’s voice broke, a little. “Because that kiss didn’t look meaningless. It was meaningful. Meaning-packed.”

“I swear, Buffy, it’s okay.” Willow was blushing now and avoiding eye contact. Xander guessed this was a hard thing to accept all at once. “It’s just, things are different in Brazil, you know? You might see things that don’t mean what you think they mean.”

There was a polite cough from the doorway and all three of them were startled. The door opened and Kennedy stood leaning against the frame. Her hair was loose and tangled and she was barefoot, still wearing her clothes from last night. She’d pulled her suspenders down so they hung loose against her thighs, hip-hop style. Her white t-shirt was smudged with bloodstains.

“Just to be clear,” she said, “Yes, I was eavesdropping, and yes, I heard everything.”

“So you heard me explaining that everything’s fine,” Willow said, giving Kennedy a weirdly intense look.

“No,” Kennedy said, “it really isn’t.”

Willow said something in Portuguese. Without understanding a word, Xander could read Willow’s tone and body language well enough to know she was wavering between defensive and angry, with an undercurrent of shame. This conversation was getting confusing, and not just from the lack of subtitles. If Kennedy was cheating on Willow, why would _Willow_ be ashamed?

“No,” Kennedy said to whatever Willow had just told her. She went on in English, “It’s not fair to Oz. Or to anyone in this room. They’re your friends, sweetie, they’ll understand. And if they don’t, then fuck them,” she finished, with a glare in Buffy’s direction.

“I seriously _don’t_ understand,” Buffy retorted, bristling, but Willow ignored her, addressing Kennedy in Portuguese again in a more desperate tone.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Kennedy said. She slumped a little lower against the doorframe. “I was scared out of my fucking mind.”

Willow didn’t reply right away, so Xander finally jumped in. “I feel like I’m listening to half of a phone call here. A really important phone call, upon which the lives of my friends possibly depend. Will? What’s going on?”

“Please, Willow,” Kennedy begged, “Let me tell them.”

Willow looked down at Tara, who’d been nursing unconcerned all this time. “Okay,” she said quietly.

Kennedy stood up straight and faced Xander and Buffy, with a hint of nervous defiance in the tilt of her chin. “Oz and I _are_ lovers. So are Oz and Willow. All three of us together.” 

There was silence for a moment. Buffy looked as stunned as Xander felt.

And then he heard himself asking “Are we talking two at a time, or all three at once?”

“Xander!” Buffy gasped, simultaneous with Kennedy’s answering smirk.

“Either/or,” Kennedy said.

Buffy had that my-world’s-coming-apart expression on her face now, usually reserved for Apocalypse Eve and the night after a breakup. Xander was feeling mostly confused. Or maybe it was dissociation from the shock. Hard to tell.

“But aren’t you both gay?” Buffy said.

Kennedy’s smirk broadened into a grin. “Well, Oz _is_ kind of girly-looking...”

Willow said something in Portuguese; it sounded like she was scolding Kennedy.

Whatever she’d said, Kennedy stopped grinning. “For God’s sake, Willow, speak in English. How are they supposed to understand if we don’t talk about it?”

“I’m not sure I _can_ understand,” Buffy said in a tiny voice.

“Well, it’s not actually that complicated,” Kennedy said. “Just think of two people being in love, and multiply it by one point five.”

Willow blinked. “Hey, that’s _my_ joke!”

“And you could’ve told it yourself if you’d been willing to come out to your friends,” Kennedy said sweetly.

“Wait, are we already on to the joking?” Xander said. “I thought the joking was supposed to come during the getting-used-to-it part, which comes _after_ the understanding-what-the-hell-is-going-on-here part.”

“Okay, know what?” Willow said. “We’re going to talk about this at breakfast. _After_ I’ve finished feeding Tara, and when all of us have had at least one cup of coffee. Okay?” It wasn’t a question; this was Willow taking charge, and even Kennedy with all her brash attitude seemed to get a little smaller and meeker in response. There was nothing else to say but _“Okay.”_

***

Xander didn’t really want to wake Spike up, but they had the doctor’s appointment later in the morning. Kennedy had said, while shooing them back to their own bedrooms, that if Oz wasn’t feeling up to it she’d take Spike herself. The important thing was that there be someone there to translate, since the doctor didn’t speak much English.

He waited for Spike to get dressed before he said “There’s something you should know before breakfast.”

Spike looked over at him. Xander was sitting in the armchair, fiddling with the playlist on the iPod without actually listening to the music; the earbuds were dangling loose. “That sounded ominous,” Spike observed. “What’s up?”

Xander wondered whether it was his body language or his tone that gave it away. “Buffy saw Kennedy kissing Oz yesterday. We went to tell Willow about it this morning, and Kennedy heard us.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “And ripped into you? You bloody well deserve it. Wasn’t any of your soddin’ business, was it?”

And this, see, _this_ was why Xander hadn’t told Spike last night. “She told us that she and Oz _and_ Willow are lovers,” he said. “All three of them.”

“Well, yeah,” Spike said.

“Wait.” Xander set the iPod down without looking away from Spike. “You _knew_?”

“Not in the sense of anybody told me, no,” Spike replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “But it’s been obvious since we got here that all three of them love each other. Whether they’re all shagging besides, that’s between the three of them. Besides, Red was shagging dog-boy _years_ ago,” he reminded Xander, as though it could have slipped his mind.

“Don’t you find it weird, though, the three of them being ... _together_ like that?”

“No. Not like they’re the first people in the world to make that sort of arrangement. Hell, Dru and Darla and Angelus and I—“ He stopped short with a _shit, I didn’t mean to say that_ look on his face.

“You and Dru and Darla and Angelus _what_?” Xander asked slowly.

“Well, there wasn’t a lot to do during the day back then. And we were fucking _vampires_ , so we didn’t exactly give a shit for social conventions.”

“So let me get this straight,” Xander said, even though his inner voice of reasonable caution was shouting at him to let it go. But what the hell, he’d been ignoring _that_ voice since he was sixteen years old. “You and Drusilla?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Angelus and Darla.”

“Likewise.”

“Angelus and Drusilla?”

“Much to my irritation, yes.”

“You and Darla?”

“When she felt like it.”

“Darla and Drusilla?”

“Yes,” Spike said with a smirk, “and you can’t imagine how fucking hot that was.”

Xander sort of _could_ , but the idea gave him shivers down his spine. The bad kind. And there was only one question left to ask, and he guessed maybe Spike had been trying to derail him with the Darla/Drusilla thought picture, but this was a question that had been eating at him for too long to let it go now. “You and Angel?”

“It was a hundred years ago, pet,” Spike said quietly.

“I want to know.”

Spike sighed. “Yes. Me and Angelus.” 

“Okay.” Xander’s voice sounded calm and distant in his own ears. “I just wanted to know.” _You already knew,_ his inner voice reminded him. _They pretty much told you last week in Sunnydale._

Spike’s eyes were on him, wary. “So now you do. And just to be clear, we’re not going to talk about this again.”

 _Like hell,_ Xander was going to say, but there was a knock at the door. “Breakfast’s ready!” Kennedy called out.

***

“Pass me the juice there, Slayer?”

“Spike,” Willow said with a dark look, putting her hand on the pitcher of pineapple juice which Kennedy was about to hand to Spike, “ _What_ did I just finish saying?”

Spike raised an eyebrow at her. “You have bloody well _got_ to be kidding.”

Willow brandished the polished, gnarled ebony wand she’d brought to the table. “The talking stick won’t work if we don’t all respect the rules.”

Xander, meanwhile, was feeling a bit uncomfortable watching her waving the thing around. “Hey, Will, that’s not, like, a magic wand, is it?”

“Huh?” she said, glancing down. “Oh, no, it’s just some folk art from the market.”

“Maybe we can just do without the talking stick, sweetie?” Kennedy said, making a grab for the wand.

“No.” Willow cradled it protectively against her chest. “Do you want this conversation to descend into chaos?”

“How about we just talk one at a time like normal people—“ Kennedy started at the same time that Xander said “Can we talk about this whole threesome thing now?” while Spike simultaneously interrupted with “Will _somebody_ pass me the fucking juice?”

Willow glared at them all, simultaneously vindicated and irritated. “ _See_?”

Oz raised his hand. When everyone turned to look at him, he turned his palm up and gestured for the stick.

“Oh!” Willow said. “Right. Um, here.”

“Thanks,” Oz said mildly, taking the stick. “Kennedy, the juice?”

Kennedy rolled her eyes, but looked like she was holding back a snicker as she finally picked up the juice pitcher and handed it down the table to Spike.

Considering the state he’d been in last night, Oz was looking pretty good this morning. His hair was wet from a shower and he was wearing clean clothes—which put him ahead of Kennedy, anyway—and he didn’t look like he was in any pain. “Who wants coffee?” he asked.

The wanting of coffee was unanimous by a show of hands. Oz got up to get the pot, taking the stick with him. Xander wondered who was going to crack first and speak while stickless. His money was on Spike, but Kennedy was a pretty good candidate too. She was eyeing Willow and nibbling on a piece of toast as if she needed to keep her mouth occupied.

Oz came back with the coffee and when he poured a cup for Buffy, she tapped him on the arm and made a _stick, please_ gesture. With the talking stick in hand, she said “Okay, I really want to understand what’s going on here. Could somebody maybe start from the beginning?”

Willow reached for the stick that Buffy offered, but Kennedy got to it first. “My turn,” she said. “Your rules, sweetie,” she reminded Willow, and kissed her on the forehead. “Okay, the _beginning_ —you know that Oz went back to Sunnydale for a little while just after Willow and Tara got together, right?”

“Well, yeah, I was _there_ ,” Xander said.

“You just talked without the talking stick, luv,” Spike pointed out. “I’m gonna have to confiscate your bacon.” He snagged the crispiest piece off Xander’s plate.

“Hey! _You_ just talked without the stick!” Xander shot back, putting a protective hand over his plate.

“I bet this stick would hurt if I hit you with it,” Kennedy said sweetly to the two of them. Xander was pretty sure she didn’t really mean it, but with Willow and Buffy both glaring at him he settled down fast.

“Okay, so the thing was, they still had feelings for each other, but Willow chose Tara. So Oz left.” Kennedy took a sip of coffee. “Fast forward a few years. Willow and I moved into this place so that we could coordinate the South American branch of Operation: Find All The New Slayers Before They Break Anything. Meanwhile, Oz was already living in Sao Paulo. One day he and Willow just ran into each other on the street, totally out of nowhere.”

“Wow,” Buffy said.

“Willow and I had already been talking about having a baby,” Kennedy went on. “So when Oz showed up, we talked about asking him to be the sperm donor.”

“This might be more detail than we actually need,” Xander suggested.

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I assumed you knew where babies come from. And by the way, I still have the stick. Anyway ... one thing kind of led to another.”

Willow touched the end of the stick, making contact without taking it away from Kennedy. “We realized, hey, we’re making a family together. We _are_ a family together.”

“Well, and also there was sex,” Kennedy added, which got a smile from Oz.

“And that’s it?” Buffy said.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Kennedy said.

Buffy still looked troubled. “Weren’t you worried about ... I mean, it’s not exactly normal.”

“We’re a vampire slayer, a witch and a werewolf,” Kennedy pointed out. “We left normal behind so long ago I don’t even remember what it looks like.”

“Well, I think it’s a beautiful story,” Spike said with a wave of his fork. “I love a happy ending.” Even though he sounded all flippant, Xander could tell he meant it. Xander wasn’t so sure how he felt about the whole thing himself. It was going to take some getting used to.

“Um, hey, the stick?” Willow said. “Have we all forgotten about the stick?”

Kennedy gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Let it go, sweetie,” she murmured.

Willow put the ebony wand down on the table with a resigned shrug. “I still say it was a good idea. Keeping things under control.”

“I’m just glad we can stop tip-toeing around.” Kennedy sat back in her chair and took another drink of coffee. “That was getting old.”

Willow turned to Xander with a _help me change the subject!_ glint in her eyes. “Well, hey, enough about us! How are you two doing?”

“Um, fine,” Xander said. “The guest bedroom’s great. It’s pretty cool that you have a guest bedroom. Very ... grown-up.”

“We also have a baby,” Oz reminded him.

“How are you feeling today, Spike?” Willow asked. “You look better.”

Spike shrugged. “Should do, after sleeping for a whole sodding day.”

“Oz, are you up to taking Spike to the doctor?” Kennedy asked. “If you’re not, I can do it.”

“I feel pretty good,” Oz said. “Should be all right.”

“Okay, then how about you drop me off at the free clinic on the way?” Kennedy said. “I wanna see if Gabriel’s awake.”

“I’ll come too,” Buffy said quickly, and Xander remembered her worries last night about what Kennedy might do to the boy.

“That’ll make five in the car,” Xander pointed out. “Is that okay?”

“Oz, Kennedy, Buffy, me,” Spike counted on his fingers. “Makes four, pet.”

“And me,” Xander said, forcing calm. They weren’t going to have this particular fight in front of everyone, were they?

“There’s no point in you coming just to wait in reception,” Spike said.

“Right, except I’m not waiting in fucking reception. I want to meet the doctor.”

Spike shrugged. “There’s no need.”

Xander was losing his cool, which was not a good thing, and he knew that the response on the tip of his tongue would only make things worse. _I need to go with you because I don’t trust you to tell me whatever the doctor tells you._

Then he felt Willow’s hand on his arm. “I’d be more comfortable if someone stayed with me and Tara,” she said. “I’m pretty wiped from last night, on top of childbirth and everything. I might need some help lifting her and changing her.”

She was trying to help, Xander could tell. And she had a point, too.

“Okay,” he said, with a feeling like he’d just lost a round of something. “I’ll stay with you.”


	12. Chapter 12

Gabriel was smaller than Buffy remembered. That must be the difference between standing in an alley with a knife and lying in a hospital bed. He was curled up on his side, awake, staring into space with a sullen glare. He didn’t acknowledge Kennedy and Buffy until Kennedy yanked the privacy curtain around the bed, cutting the three of them off from the ward. Then he muttered something under his breath. Kennedy raised an eyebrow and said something that made him roll his eyes.

“Hey, translation for the Portuguese-impaired?” Buffy prodded her.

“Right,” Kennedy said, impatiently. “So far we’ve established that I’m a cunt, and he’s a nasty little beast.”

Buffy flashed a conciliatory smile in Gabriel’s direction. “Could you try being nice to him so maybe he’ll talk to us? Just, you know, an idea.”

Kennedy grimaced. She said something else to Gabriel, and he snarled a response. The information-getting plan did not seem to be going well. 

Stuck listening without understanding, Buffy watched Gabriel as Kennedy persisted in questioning him. His arms were scrawny, with scabbed elbows; his shaggy black hair needed some serious lather, rinse, repeat. She guessed he was homeless.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to be that young, lost and alone. She couldn’t, really. Even when she’d been a teenaged runaway herself, the closest she’d come to roughing it had been a few nights in an L.A. youth hostel.

“Tell him I can give him a home,” she said abruptly.

Kennedy gave her a startled, puzzled look. “What?”

“If he’ll tell us what Carlos is up to, tell us where the nest is, then I’ll take him back to Rome.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sure.” Buffy thought fast, justifying the plan in her own mind as she spoke. “The Council’s all set up with the residential school for new Slayers. No reason he couldn’t live there too. He could train as a Watcher. Andrew would love to have a protégé.”

Kennedy looked supremely unconvinced. “What makes you think this kid would want to be a Watcher? Last night he looked ready to join the fucking vampires.”

“Just try to make it sound good,” Buffy said. “It’s gotta be better than what he’s got now.”

From the tone of Kennedy’s voice as she addressed Gabriel again, Buffy guessed that she wasn’t trying her hardest to sell the idea. The change in Gabriel’s expression gave Buffy hope, however. He said something. Kennedy turned back to Buffy. “He says he wants a gun.”

Gabriel’s eyes were fixed on Buffy now; he knew who he was negotiating with. He was trying to look tough, Buffy thought, but he looked so young. “He can have a gun, sure. If he goes back to Rome and trains as a Watcher.”

“I don’t believe this,” Kennedy muttered, but she repeated the offer for Gabriel; Buffy could pick out the word “Rome” in the middle of the unintelligible sentence.

Gabriel smiled like he’d just been offered an ice cream cone. “Okay!” he said, looking right at Buffy. “Okay.” He held out a hand like he wanted her to shake it. She reached out and sealed the deal with a firm handshake; Gabriel beamed, and Buffy grinned a little herself.

“This may just be the worst plan you’ve ever come up with,” Kennedy said.

“Not even close,” Buffy assured her. “Now, ask him about Carlos.”

Now that they had a deal, Gabriel chatted easily. “Carlos is building an army,” Kennedy translated. “All children. Street kids, mostly. Gabriel says the kids want to get vamped. He and his friend did, anyway. Carlos promises them power like they’ve never dreamed of. He promises them the chance to kill the police, to kill everybody they hate.”

“Oh God. How many of them are there?”

“He says hundreds. I think he doesn’t really know. We caught him before he could join up.”

“ _Where_ are they?”

Kennedy relayed the question, but Buffy didn’t need to wait for a translation of Gabriel’s answer.

Hotel Inferno.

***

“Can you believe it?” Buffy asked as they left the free clinic. “After all that, the nest is in the exact place we were going to look for it yesterday?”

“At least now we have a better idea what we’re facing.” Kennedy waved down a cab for them. “What are you going to do about Gabriel?”

“I’ll have to talk to Giles about making him some travel documents.”

“You’re seriously going to bring him to Rome?”

“Well, I said I would, didn’t I?”

Kennedy shook her head in a _you’ve lost it, girl,_ kind of way. “He’ll run away. Hopefully before you even get back to him, so he’ll save us all the trouble, but more likely he’ll wait till he gets to Rome and then run off with the first weapon he gets his hands on.”

“No he won’t,” Buffy said. “I’m giving him a home—a place to belong.”

Kennedy made an exasperated little noise, tapping the cab’s window with her fingernails. “Okay, never mind. The important thing is, we need a plan for attacking Carlos’s gang.”

“Oh, do we ever. Gabriel was probably wrong about the number of vamps, but I bet the group we dusted last night was less than half of them.”

“Our fighting strength is down to me and you. Oz and Willow are out of it.”

“And so are Spike and Xander,” Buffy agreed. “But hey, these mini-vamps aren’t as strong as the normal kind. We could probably take, like, ten each if they don’t see us coming.”

“But there might be more than that. And I bet Carlos and his inner circle will be closer to full-sized. Maybe we should call in reinforcements?”

Buffy shook her head. “The longer we wait, the more time they have to vamp more kids. And besides ... I’m not sure if reinforcements would be such a good idea.” To Kennedy’s quizzical look, she explained, “The rest of the Slayers are younger and newer than us. Fighting vamps that look like kids gives _me_ a serious wiggins. I don’t know how many of the girls could handle it.”

Kennedy conceded the point with a nod. Buffy thought she’d maybe won her over a little with that you-and-me-versus-the-other-Slayers bit. It was true though—except for Faith, who was somewhere in Siberia, Kennedy was the closest Buffy had to a peer.

“So we’re it,” Kennedy said. “Okay. We’re going to need one hell of a good plan.”

 

***

Sadly, a good plan did not pop out of the shadows and throw itself at their feet on the way home. So they explained the situation to Xander and Willow, who were hanging out in the living room with the sleeping baby.

“Oh, God,” Willow said, “Those poor kids.”

Kennedy sat down beside her and put an arm around Willow’s shoulders. “Yeah, well, it’ll be poor _us_ if we don’t stop them.”

“Maybe you should do some proper recon first,” Xander suggested. “Get a better idea of the layout, the actual numbers.”

Buffy shook her head. “It’d be hard to get in and out without being noticed.”

Xander looked thoughtful. “If you could find a choke point, like a doorway or something, the two of you could hold off a whole lot of vamps.”

“That might work, if we had some way to drive them out of the building,” Buffy mused. “Like, if we set it on fire—hey, could we just set the building on fire?”

“Too dangerous,” Kennedy said. “The buildings in the favela are all crowded together and flammable.”

“Besides, what if there are kids in there?” Willow said. “I mean, other recruits like Gabriel who haven’t been vamped yet?”

Buffy groaned. “I hadn’t even thought of that!”

“If they’re anything like Gabriel, those kids can take care of themselves,” Kennedy said. She didn’t sound terribly sympathetic.

Willow gave her an appalled look. “They’re _children_!”

“What we need is some way to take out the vamps without risking any civilians,” Xander said. “Think maybe we can get our hands on a blessed tanker truck? Flood the place with holy water?”

“Hey,” Buffy perked up, “That’s a great idea!”

Xander spread his hands. “I was joking. Where the hell would we get a tanker truck, to start with?”

“Oh, oh, I know!” Willow said. “I’ve been working on this sun ball spell...”

“Not that again,” Kennedy groaned. “Honey, you’ve been working on that spell for, like, _years_. It doesn’t work.”

“No, seriously, I almost had it last time.”

“Is this the same spell you were working on back in Sunnydale?” Buffy asked, tugging at vague memories of long-ago planning sessions. “The one where you use your light spell to make real sunlight, full of vitamin D and vamp-dusty goodness? That would’ve been so awesome. If it ever worked.”

“It will work,” Willow said. “It’s been done before. I found an old wizard’s notes in the attic of the Rome offices last time I was there. I just didn’t have time to finish working out the bugs before I got pregnant.”

“Bugs,” Kennedy repeated. “Like a sunburn over 95% of your body?”

Willow made a _pshaw_ noise. “I’m a redhead from California. I laugh in the face of sunburn.”

Kennedy’s skepticism didn’t faze Buffy much. Experience said that if Willow thought she could do something, then she could. “Can you have it ready by tomorrow?” she asked.

“Are you kidding?” Kennedy said, moving protectively closer to Willow. “We have a new baby, remember? Willow’s a little busy.”

“There’s one of her and six of us,” Willow said to Kennedy. “I have to feed her, but if the rest of you take care of everything else, I’ll have time. I mean, if you have any better ideas, I’m right here with my ears.” She paused a moment to make her point, and then nodded. “All right. I nursed Tara right before you two got home, so she should be good for another couple of hours. If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the carport.”

***

Spike and Oz got back a little while later. Buffy awkwardly averted her eyes as Spike went straight to Xander and gave him a kiss. Unfortunately, this left her with a clear view of Kennedy’s affectionate greeting of Oz—only a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but knowing what she knew now it made Buffy blush.

“How did it go?” Xander asked immediately. He seemed to be asking Oz as much as Spike, but Oz just gave a little shrug.

“The nice lady doctor gave me a new prescription for meds,” Spike said. “Should help.”

“That’s it?”

“And some tests,” Oz added.

“She seemed to have a perverted interest in my blood, but it’s all right, I made sure I could see her reflection in the window,” Spike said.

“What do you mean?” asked Xander, apparently missing the joke that even Buffy had caught.

“Shh, luv,” Spike petted Xander’s cheek, “It’ll all be fine.”

“Where’s Willow?” Oz asked.

“Outside, working on the sun ball spell,” Kennedy said, sounding resigned to it.

“The one that never works?”

“She says it’ll work this time.”

“Okay.” Oz went over to the bassinet. “How’s Tara?”

Kennedy smiled. “Sleepy. Adorable.”

Buffy watched Oz and Kennedy just gaze into the bassinet and glow for a while. When it started to get weird, she turned to Spike and Xander, but they were gone. She heard their bedroom door closing.

Lonely. That was what she was feeling. She swallowed, smiled, and said, “I’ve got to call Giles and make the arrangements for Gabriel. I’ll be in the kitchen.” 

Kennedy and Oz didn't even watch her go.


	13. Chapter 13

Drusilla shattered a stained glass window on their way into the church. Then she threw her shotgun away and darted over to run her fingers through the glass shards, giggling. “Look, my love,” she said, holding up a bleeding finger for Spike to examine. “Angels are weeping.”

“They see you coming, pet.” Spike scooped her up and sucked her finger, relishing the cold iron tang of her blood. He got the glass sliver between his teeth and spat it out. “Best not keep them waiting.”

The sanctuary was deserted but for the choir, who stood in their white-and-gold robes singing _Ave Maria_. Dru spun and danced down the aisle. Spike followed, taking long strides. The heavy leather of his coat flapped around his legs.

The choir was all small boys, and tears ran down their cheeks as they sang. Dru plucked one from the choir stall, lifting him like a doll. The others kept singing, their sad eyes all on her. She cradled her chosen victim in her arms and brought him over to Spike. “You haven’t been well, love,” she said. “You shall have the first drink.”

Spike brought out his fangs. The boy whimpered, but he bared his thin brown neck. Spike bit deep, reveling in the first hot, bitter gush of blood.

And then he remembered. He staggered backwards, choking, and fell to his knees. “We can’t _kill_ them, Dru. You mustn’t—mustn’t kill anymore.”

She dropped the boy carelessly and came and knelt in from of Spike. She brushed his hair away from his eyes with gentle fingers. “Poor William,” she murmured. “Your head is all a muddle.”

***

Spike woke up gasping, drenched in sweat. Xander rolled over towards him and cracked open his eye. “Spike? Are you okay?”

“Had another dream,” Spike croaked. He was still half in the grips of it; could still taste the boy’s blood.

“Shit.” Xander pulled Spike into a tight, close hug. Spike shut his eyes and pressed his face into Xander’s shoulder, trying to chase the images away. It didn’t work. When he closed his eyes, _she_ was there.

“Wanna talk about it?” Xander asked.

“It was Dru again.” Spike swallowed. His throat was dry. “Fed me a boy. In a church. Doesn’t matter. Wasn’t anything real—wasn’t one of our real kills, not in particular. I can still feel her, under my skin. She’s out there, luv.”

Spike felt Xander tense up. He wasn’t sure whether Xander believed him that Dru was in town—he wasn’t sure whether any of them did, at this point. In the broad light of day, he wasn’t sure about it himself, but right now he could feel her lurking just out of sight.

“We’ve got to get you out of Sao Paulo,” Xander said. “This place is stirring up too many old memories.”

Spike tangled his fingers through Xander’s hair and kissed him just behind the ear. “No argument here. I’m ready to fly home as soon as you are.”

Xander sat up. “Yeah. Well, we should wait for those test results first, huh?”

Spike shrugged, still lying down. “Could wait for them just as well in Rome.” He hoped Xander wouldn’t ask him again what the doctor had said—and he didn’t. Instead, Xander got up and started stripping the sweat-soaked sheets off the bed. Spike got up himself and, wordless, went to his bag for a dry set of clothes to sleep in.

The doctor had been interested in the night sweats—noted them down on her little list of symptoms. Not something Spike would’ve thought to bring up, but Oz had noticed the extra laundry, these last few nights.

She’d had some theories, too, as to what might be wrong with him. Spike hadn’t passed them along to Xander just yet, and he’d made Oz promise to keep his gob shut, too. No sense worrying Xander any more than necessary.

Once Xander had got the bed all freshly made up, Spike found that he was reluctant to get back in it. Not that he wasn’t tired, but he didn’t fancy the idea of closing his eyes and meeting Dru again. “I’m parched,” he said. “Think I’ll go have a glass of juice.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Xander offered.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not an invalid, here. You warm up the bed, and I’ll be back in a mo’.”

The kitchen light was on, which was unexpected at 3 a.m.. Spike went in and found Buffy alone at the stove, standing over a saucepan.

“Oh!” She looked up in surprise. “Spike! What are you doing up?”

“Just getting some juice.” He went to the fridge. “Yourself?”

“Willow and Kennedy were up with the baby, and they woke me up. I said I’d make hot cocoa for everyone, but then Tara fell asleep so they went back to bed.” Buffy looked down at her saucepan. “So, um, want some cocoa?”

Spike considered the juice pitcher in his hand, shrugged, and put it back in the fridge. “Sure.” He was in no hurry to face his dreams again.

“You’re looking better,” Buffy said, pouring the cocoa into two mugs.

“Feeling it, too,” Spike agreed. They sat down together at one end of the big wooden kitchen table. Spike blew over the surface of his cocoa. He realized that he was pleased to have a chance to talk to Buffy alone, after everything that had happened. “I hope Xander hasn’t been giving you too much grief over that series of unfortunate events.”

“You mean when I took you out on patrol to get robbed, shot, and attacked by vampires in the pouring rain?” Buffy winced into her cocoa. “Oh, we’re halfway to laughing about it.”

“Don’t take it hard,” Spike advised her. “He gets protective.”

A rueful smile ghosted across Buffy’s lips. “Yeah, I know.”

They sipped their cocoa in companionable silence for a moment or two. Then Spike said quietly, “Buffy? I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” 

She noticed his change in tone—she sat up a bit straighter. “All right. Ask away.”

“What was heaven like?”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh God, Spike, are you _dying_?”

“Well, that’s part of the whole humanity package, innit?” Spike forced a grin. He hadn’t meant to scare her; he just wanted to know. “We’re all going to die eventually.”

“Ah. Right.” She tentatively returned his grin. “Some of us, more than once.”

He raised his mug. “Cheers to that.”

She clinked her mug against his, and they drank—to coming back from the dead, or what, he wasn’t quite sure, but anyway it seemed to ease the mood.

“So, heaven?” he prompted her. “I wouldn’t ask, it’s only that ... I’ve already had a glimpse of hell. Bloody terrifying, it was.” He took a longer drink of cocoa to cover up the shiver that passed through him when he thought about it.

She blinked. “What do you mean? Like, a hell dimension?”

Spike shrugged. “Dunno, exactly. It was back when I was a ghost—I wasn’t tied to this plane by much of a thread, and I could feel myself being drawn to this ... place. Not a place, maybe, so much as an alternate state of being. All I know for sure is, there was torment, fire, pain—and I _knew_ , too, I _knew_ that was where I belonged.”

Her eyes had gone wide. Spike suddenly had the sense that he’d said too much. Bloody running off at the mouth. He was comfortable around Buffy and it was 3 a.m..

“You don’t belong there,” she said.

“Slayer. Remember who I was. Remember what I’ve done.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. Besides, Angel thinks the Shanshu means the slate’s wiped clean—puts my soul back in the balance.”

“Heaven,” Buffy said quietly. “Honestly, I don’t remember anymore. I _had_ to forget, just to get to the point where I could function in this world again.” She gave him a sad smile. “I _remember_ remembering, though. When I first got back. I remember missing it. I think ... it was a feeling, more than a place. I was at peace. I was filled with love.” Her eyes were misting over now, and Spike started to feel bad for asking. “I hope I can feel it again someday. But I try not to think about that.”

“Best not,” Spike agreed. “Sorry to have brought it up.”

Buffy brushed the back of her hand quickly over her eyes. “Oh well, before you came in I was thinking about how to bring down the vampire children’s crusade, so hey—not like you interrupted me thinking about naked Brad Pitt, or something.”

“How are the plans coming, then?” All afternoon there had been bursts of light from the carport where Red had been working on that magical sunshine spell of hers. Spike had never realized the little witch knew so many colorful profanities.

“We still don’t have a ‘plan’ so much as a loosely-assorted series of ideas that might or might not work.” Buffy grimaced into her mug of cocoa. “I just can’t figure out how Kennedy and I are going to operate the sun ball spell _and_ fight the vamps _and_ escort any captive kids to safety. We wanted to keep everyone else out of it, but I’m starting to think we might need Oz and Xander—“

“No,” Spike cut her off. “Not Xander.”

Buffy looked startled at his forceful tone. “We’d keep him as far from the action as possible,” she promised. “It shouldn’t be any more dangerous than Tuesday night at the Bronze in the good old days.”

“That’s a frightening thought in itself,” Spike said. “But I know Xander can take care of himself in a fight. Facing an army of children, though, that’s the last thing he needs. Not after _les Enfants de Dieu_.”

“Les...” Buffy repeated, blank for a moment, and then she got it. Spike knew that she’d never had the whole story out of Xander—nobody had apart from Spike, Giles and Xander’s therapist—but she had enough bits and pieces to make the connection. “Oh. Mathilde’s army. You think it would wig him out?”

“I think I don’t ever want to see him as close to losing it as he was when he found me in L.A.”

“Was it that bad?” Buffy fiddled absently with her mug. “I mean, he seemed ... distant.”

“He was shutting you out. Didn’t know how to talk to you from where he was.”

“But he talked to you,” she observed. “Just like me after I crawled out of my grave. I couldn’t talk to anyone but you.”

“I guess I’m just that bloody approachable.”

They shared a wry look.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll keep Xander away from the fight. I don’t know how, but—I’ll come up with something.”

“Buffy,” Spike said, “I want you to make me a promise.”

“What?”

“That you’ll look out for Xander if anything happens to me.”

She put her mug down on the table, frowning. “If anything—what do you mean?”

“You’re his best friend, apart from Willow, and she’s got her own family to look after now.”

Buffy clasped her hands around his where he gripped his mug. He felt his heart speed up at her touch, but he didn’t pull away. She wasn’t leaning in, not like the other day in the rain when she’d kissed him, and her expression was serious. “You’re scaring me, Spike,” she said. “What did the doctor tell you yesterday?”

“Nothing. Just drew some blood, ordered some tests. But I thought this might be my last chance to talk to you alone before we leave. I’m just covering my bases, right?” He looked down at her strong little fingers, covering his. “Buffy ... I truly am sorry I didn’t tell you I’d come back. I was a coward. After everything that’s gone between us ... I knew we could never be together, not really. And I didn’t want to have to hear it from you.”

“Well, you’re an idiot.” She sighed, a sort of soft letting-go. “But I’m glad you were there when Xander needed you. I’m glad you’re happy together. And I promise that I’ll look after him if you’re suddenly and unfortunately eaten by trolls.”

He made an expression of mock horror. “Don’t even joke, Slayer. Trolls are vicious, hungry creatures with terrible oral hygiene.”

Buffy giggled, and Spike grinned, and that was when Xander walked in.

“Spike, what’re you— “ Xander stopped in his tracks. Buffy jerked her hands away from Spike like he was suddenly red hot. Spike wished she hadn’t done that—made it look like they had something to hide.

“Buffy made cocoa,” Spike said, pretending not to notice the expression on Xander’s face. “Would you like some?”

“No,” Xander said. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom. Whenever you’re done.”

Spike stood up before Xander could leave. “We’re done now.” He went over and kissed Xander on the lips. Xander stood rigid, not giving anything back but at least not moving away. This mess was going to take some sorting out, then. “Good night, Buffy. Ta for the cocoa.”

Back in the guest room, Xander climbed into bed and rolled over so that his back was to Spike. “Good night,” he said.

“Don’t be like this, pet,” Spike said, easing into bed but not lying down. He rested a hand over Xander’s tight shoulder blades. “Buffy happened to be in the kitchen. I sat down and had a cup of hot cocoa and a chat. That’s all.”

“It’s fine,” Xander said. His tone of voice thoroughly contradicted his words. “Everything’s fine. Go to sleep.”

“What used to be between Buffy and me, it’s over. I would never betray you.”

“I _said_ , everything’s fine. Fantabulously fine. So lie down and shut up. You need to sleep.”

Spike considered taking Xander at his word. Might be easier to talk in the morning when they were better rested.

But come morning, everyone would be busy making plans of attack. No telling when they’d have another real chance to talk, and besides, the last thing he wanted was to cause a rift between Buffy and Xander. Been there, done that, got the bloody t-shirt.

So he went on the offensive.

“I’m not bothered that you’re jealous. It’s fucking hot, in point of fact. But this shutting me out, it’s tedious. Why not throw me up against a wall for a fast hard fuck and mark your territory?” 

That had the desired effect, which was to say Xander at least rolled over and glared at him. “I’m not jealous. And we’re not talking about this.”

“So you weren’t at all bothered finding me in the kitchen holding hands with Buffy?”

“No!” Xander pretty much snarled. “Now will you fucking _go_ to _sleep_?!”

“Well, good,” Spike said, blithely ignoring the majority of Xander’s response. “Because Buffy and I have a lot of history together. It would be understandable if you felt a bit threatened by that.”

Xander sat up abruptly, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and grabbed his jeans off the floor. That was _not_ the result Spike had been hoping for. “Oi!” he yelped. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out,” Xander said.

“Out _where_? It’s the middle of the bloody night!”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

 _Shite._ He didn’t think Xander was bluffing, and Spike did _not_ want his pigheaded boyfriend wandering around Sao Paulo at night. Even if Dru was all in Spike’s head—which was still bloody uncertain as far as he was concerned—there was an army of hungry child-vampires steadily building its numbers a few miles away.

Spike wrapped his arms around Xander’s waist and rested his forehead against the back of Xander’s neck. “I’m sorry, luv, I’m sorry. Don’t go. I’ll shut up now.”

He felt Xander shake his head. “God _damn_ it, Spike.”

“I pushed too hard,” Spike murmured into Xander’s warm skin. “I’m sorry. But you’re _not_ all right, pet, and I need you to tell me so’s I can fix it.”

Xander made a move to peel Spike’s arms off of him, but he didn’t try very hard. “The middle of the night is seriously not the time to be hashing out our relationship issues.”

“Can’t think of a better time. No distractions, nobody else around, no big ugly monsters currently trying to kill us— “

“But you’re supposed to be _asleep_.” Xander was like a broken record, except, Spike noticed, the tinge of desperation was getting stronger on each iteration. “Jesus, Spike, you’re sick. You need rest. We can’t have this fight now.”

Ah. Well that explained a thing or two. “Doesn’t have to be a fight.”

“Discussion. Conference. Thing.”

“Can’t sleep.” He pressed his face harder against Xander’s neck, dug in a little tighter with his fingers. “Not with Dru in my head. I’ll rest better once the sun’s up. I’ll have a real lie-in, stay in bed till noon. Promise.”

Xander sighed and kicked his jeans back to the floor, and Spike knew he’d won—if that was the word. He welcomed Xander back under the covers with a kiss, but kept it brief—after going through all this bloody trouble to get Xander to talk, he wasn’t going to derail the conversation with sex. “Lay it on me, luv,” he urged, threading his fingers through Xander’s own. The more he touched Xander, the less likely this was to turn into a real knock-down shouting match. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

It took Xander a while to answer, but Spike could tell he was just trying to work out what to say. “I’m _scared_ ,” Xander finally admitted in a hoarse almost-whisper. “Every time I turn around, there’s a new way I’m going to lose you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Not that Spike didn’t have a guess or two, but Xander needed to say it.

“What if Buffy wants you back?”

“She’ll have to go fish.” Spike kissed Xander again. “I’m with you now.”

“But you’re in love with her.”

“I love her,” Spike conceded, and felt Xander drawing away. “Well so do you, you daft sod! But I’m not _in_ love with her, not anymore.” Strange to say, it was true. “The man I was while I was in love with her—he’s gone, and I don’t want him back.”

“And what about Angel?” Xander shot him a look both frightened and challenging. “What the _hell_ is the deal with you and him?”

Spike was caught flat-footed—metaphorically, seeing as they were lying face-to-face in bed. He hadn’t expected Xander to jump straight from Buffy to Angel. “Do you have a free year coming up any time soon?” he asked. “’Cause I think it’d take about that long to do _that_ story justice.”

“So how about you just summarize the last few chapters?”

“You know all that part. You know he was lurking about in LA after I turned human, making a nuisance of himself. Then you recruited him for the Council, and I’ve only seen him a handful of times since then.”

“Including twice in Rome while I was in South Africa.”

“That was months ago, pet. Didn’t seem to bother you at the time.”

“That was before I knew you were lovers.”

Spike grimaced. “We’re _not_. We’ve shagged plenty of times, Peaches ‘n me, but it’s never once been about love.”

Xander didn’t look especially reassured. Spike still found it tough to believe that it _hadn’t_ ever occurred to Xander that he’d had sex with Angelus back in the day—what did he think vampires did before television?

“Did you ‘shag’ each other while I was in South Africa?”

“God no.”

“So you’re going to tell me it’s all ancient history? Because the way Angel was acting around you in LA— “

“Ancient and dusty, pet.” It was 99% true.

“What about right after you turned human?” Xander frowned. “You lived with Angel in the Hyperion, you mentioned that when we went there for the spell....”

“Bloody hell,” Spike sighed. He’d rather not tell Xander that particular story. Didn’t concern him, and it wasn’t exactly a time Spike liked to reflect on. But he could see that not knowing was eating away at Xander; he was imagining some interlude of intimacy between Spike and Angel, and it was driving him batty. “If I tell you all about it, then can we let it rest?”

“Yes. Please. I just want to know.”

“Not so sure you do, luv, but we’ve come this far.” Spike closed his eyes for a moment, thought back to night he’d woken up in the alley, stark naked in the rain, lying in a puddle of gore. “Angel was pretty well demolished after the big showdown with Wolfram & Hart. He’d lost all of his people you know—all of them. I’m not saying he was back to huddling in dark corners and eating rats, but it was a near thing. And as for me, turning human was no bloody picnic. Trying to live with a vampire’s memories without the strength of the demon in me—it was like the soul was new and raw all over again.”

Best to keep it short. Xander didn’t need _all_ the sodding details.

“So what I’m saying is, Angel and I were _not_ in our right minds, not even close. We lost some time in there, licking our wounds and clawing at the walls. Maybe a few days, maybe a month—can’t even say. And then one night he heard me screaming and he came into the room where I was staying, and maybe the both of us wanted to smother the voices in our heads, and we went at it like it was 1895. Come morning I went into the loo, took a good look at myself in the mirror, smashed it to hell and cut myself to ribbons with the pieces.” Xander took a sharp breath but Spike pushed on, wanted to get past that part quickly. “Angel scooped me up off the floor and called 911, had them drag my sorry arse to the hospital. After that I went and set up housekeeping with Blue in my old flat, and I swear to you, luv, Angel hasn’t touched me since that day.”

“Fuck, Spike,” Xander swore softly. He squeezed Spike’s hand hard enough to hurt. “I didn’t know—you have to promise, fucking _promise_ never to do that again.”

“I already swore, luv. There’s nobody for me now but you. Not like Angel’s offering, but if he was, I wouldn’t touch him with a bloody ten foot pointy stick.”

“Not that. The mirror.”

“Oh. Not a worry, pet.” He didn’t like Xander looking at him like he was breakable. “Love looking at myself in the glass, these days. Can’t get enough of it. I’m a very attractive bloke, you know.”

Xander snorted, and Spike thought that maybe they were all right now.

“Sky’s getting brighter,” Spike pointed out. “Time to sleep?”

“Yeah.” Whatever else Xander was thinking, he kept it to himself. But he hugged Spike tight as they curled up to sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Oz woke up to the smell of coffee and sausages. He was in his own bed. The angle of the light shining through his window told him he’d slept later than usual. That was a good sign -- if there’d been any emergencies overnight, someone would have woken him up.

He stood up carefully, checking how it felt. Stiffer than yesterday. About what he’d expected.

He knelt in front of the low altar under the window. Held a flame to the edge of a charcoal disc until it caught, put it in the small ceramic bowl. Lit an incense stick, stuck it upright in the jar of sand. Crumbled a few pinches of dried herbs over the slowly-burning charcoal.

He settled back, took a few breaths. Smoke rose from the herbs in thin wisps; it made his nose itch and his eyes prickle. Wolfsbane, Devil’s Bit, Himalayan Mandrake. The sandalwood incense could only go so far in masking the smell.

He settled into himself; felt what there was to feel. The knife wound, still healing. The wolf, coiled inside. It was resting now, not fighting him.

That was a metaphor. The wolf _was_ him. He just didn’t feel it so strongly this morning.

He stayed in place, breathed some more, let thoughts and emotions float to the surface of his mind. He felt awe at how beautiful Tara was. Fear at how tiny and vulnerable she was. Concern about Kennedy and Buffy’s coming battle with the vampire children. Envy that Kennedy had spent the night in bed with Willow and Tara while he’d slept apart. The wolf stirred a little at that last thought, briefly bared its metaphorical teeth. He soothed it back down with a firm hand, and continued his meditation.

***

The girls were in the kitchen having breakfast. Tara wasn’t with them, but the baby monitor’s receiver sat in the middle of the table, hissing a low static. Willow, who was tearing into a plate of scrambled eggs, was the first to notice Oz. "G’morni-g," she greeted him with her mouth full. She waved a hand at the stove, and swallowed. “Have some food. There’s lots left. Xander and Spike aren’t up yet.”

Oz helped himself to a couple of sausages, a few scoops of eggs, and a cup of coffee. "How was the night?" he asked.

"We were up four times," Kennedy said. She was clutching a coffee mug with both hands. "Did you seriously not hear us?"

"Yeah," Oz shrugged. He ignored her cranky tone -- Kennedy was not a morning person at the best of times. "Thanks for letting me sleep. It helped -- I’m feeling better."

"That’s good!" Buffy said. "Because I think we’re gonna need you after all."

"Battle plans?" Oz nodded at the piece of paper in front of Buffy, which was covered in boxes and arrows and frustrated scribbles.

Buffy grimaced. "Yeah, well, it’s a bit hard to come up with a game plan when we don’t even know what the field looks like." 

"We know there’s a front door" Kennedy said. "We go through it, we start dusting the minivamps. Easy."

"Until they surround us and cut us off from each other and kill us with a zillion teensy-tiny bites," Buffy countered. "We need a better plan than that."

"The sun ball's effects will be optimized if you can set it off in the middle of a big room full of vampires," Willow said.

"Which, if it doesn’t work, leaves us stranded in the middle of a big room full of vampires," Kennedy pointed out. 

Buffy frowned. "Wait, this plan feels familiar somehow. What does it remind me of?"

"Hellmouth," Spike said from the kitchen door. "First Evil. Ubervamps. Me in the middle of it, making like a solar flare."

"Oh, right." Buffy winced.

"But we won that one!" Willow said brightly.

"Well, there is that." Spike took a seat at the table and accepted the cup of coffee that Oz silently handed him.

"What if we go in through the roof?" Buffy suggested. "They wouldn’t expect that, and we’d start with the high ground."

"You said you might need me," Oz reminded her.

"The sun ball spell." Willow had that feverish glint in her eyes that she got whenever she was working on serious magic. It always reminded Oz of that night she’d put Angel’s soul back in. "It works, Oz, it really works! This’ll make so much difference to the way we fight vampires. There’s just, well, one little catch. It takes about forty-five seconds to cast."

"Someone’s gonna have to sit down in a room full of vampires and do some nice, leisurely chanting," Kennedy said, giving Willow a serious _I don’t like this plan_ kind of look.

Oz nodded. "That’ll have to be me, then."

Kennedy shook her head. "You’ll be vulnerable."

"So you’ll protect me."

"Okay," Buffy said, like it was settled already. She was used to leading. 

Kennedy, who was not so used to following, looked like she wanted to keep arguing about it, but Oz pressed his knee against hers under the table and she let it go with just a grimace of protest. She had to know, really, that this was as good a plan as they were going to come up with.

"So we just need to figure out what to do about any live kids we find in there," Buffy continued.

"Xander could wait outside, lead them away," Willow suggested.

"Not Xander," Buffy said with a worried glance in Spike’s direction. 

"It’d be safe, he could stay in the sunlight," Kennedy said. "Hey, where _is_ Xander?"

"Shower," Spike said. "And it’s not a question of safe, he’d be no use to you -- doesn’t speak Portuguese, remember? I can do it -- get the kiddies away, if you find any alive, which I doubt."

Oz raised an eyebrow. "You need to take it easy. That does not qualify." 

"What about Elena?" Willow suggested.

Buffy blinked. "Your housekeeper?"

"She’s the one who told us kids were disappearing in the favela," Willow said. "I bet she’d want to help."

"Does she know about..." Buffy made a one-handed fangy gesture. "Grr, argh?"

"A little," Kennedy said. "She saw a vampire once. And she saw me slay it. We talked about it a bit after that. I never told her about Oz being a werewolf, though. Or about Willow being a witch."

"Okay, we’ll ask her to help. Kennedy, you’ll take care of that?" Buffy put her hands flat on the table and took a deep breath. "Okay then, people. I think we have a plan."


	15. What Would Have Happened Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this point, the author stopped writing.
> 
> For five years the story rested at this point, unfinished.
> 
> Finally the author admitted to herself that she was never going to finish it. In order to provide some closure for herself and her readers, she decided to briefly summarize what would have happened in the rest of the story, if she had ever managed to write it.
> 
> The summary took on a life of its own. It did not _become_ a story, but it took on some story-like qualities.
> 
> So now the story has an ending ... not exactly a _proper_ ending, but an ending none the less.
> 
> This 'verse began in fragments, and now it ends in fragments. Here is what would have happened, plot thread by plot thread.

**The Mini-Vamps**

The plan would have worked. Buffy, Kennedy and Oz would have made it to the heart of Hotel Inferno, where they would have found Carlos (the leader of the mini-vamps) and probably engaged in a bit of witty banter before all hell broke loose. The battle would have been exhilarating: Buffy and Kennedy in a whirlwind of kicks and punches and thrusting stakes guarding Oz, who in the eye of the storm would quietly and with great self-control have put together the delicate spell Willow had devised, and then the room would have been flooded with cold bright sunlight.

The sun ball spell would have destroyed Carlos and all of his best fighters; after that, Buffy and Kennedy would have had no difficulty going through the rest of the hotel and mopping up the remainder of the child-vampire army.

Elena would have waited outside in vain; no living children would have emerged.

Afterwards, Willow would have been upset about how they had dealt with the problem by slaying, like they always do, without doing anything to actually help the street kids who were so desperate that joining a vampire army seemed like a good idea. Kennedy would have been dismissive, pointing out the huge and intractable nature of poverty, probably using the words "just the way the world works" at some point along the way. Oz would have mediated between them, helping each to understand the other's point of view, and eventually the three of them would probably have agreed to try to find some real and meaningful way to make things better. How that would have proceeded in the long term is unclear, and this story was never going to be mainly about that; but the three of them live in Sao Paulo, and they are superheroes. They would have managed something.

Buffy would have brought Gabriel back to Rome, like she'd planned. And he would have run away, like Kennedy had warned her. And she would have found him, and he would have run away again, and she would have found him again ... and it would have been rough. Much harder than raising Dawn after their mother died. But eventually, Gabriel would have started to warm up to her. He would have made friends with some of the younger Slayers. He would have found a place for himself at the new Council. In the end he probably would have grown up to be a vampire hunter. But this story was never going to be mainly about that, either.

**Xander's Jealousy**

Finding out that Spike and Angel used to be lovers was difficult for Xander. Seeing Spike and Buffy together, knowing their history, was difficult for Xander. Xander's own capacity for jealous rage is a thing that scares him. It scared him into leaving Anya at the altar; it scared him after he attacked Spike at the Hyperion (at the end of the Fragments-verse story _Before the Time of Dawn_ ).

Oz and Xander would have had a really good talk about all that at some point. Oz would have had some pretty helpful insights for Xander, speaking from his own experience of sharing Willow with Kennedy, and of taming his inner werewolf. And afterwards, Xander's jealousy would have been less. His ability to be calm when Spike was with Buffy would have been greater. He wouldn't have gone to Spike and suggested having an open relationship or anything, but that particular tension which stemmed from Xander's jealous possessiveness would have been greatly eased. It is also true that Spike, at this point, honestly doesn't want to be with anyone but Xander.

**Spike's Illness**

Spike would have received a diagnosis, and it would have been leukemia—cancer of the blood.

After finding out what treatment would be like, and what the chances of success were, Spike would have decided that he would rather not seek treatment.

Xander would have been pretty upset.

Spike would have insisted. He's lived so long, and done so much, and experienced and caused so much pain, and he is tired, so very tired. He is ready to rest.

They would have returned to Rome with this thing hanging between them, huge and awful. At an impasse. Xander unable to convince Spike to keep fighting; Spike unable to get Xander to understand why he won't. The long flight back would have been terribly tense, the two of them barely speaking. And then to top it off, after the plane landed they would have been stuck on the tarmac for more than an hour due to some "situation" their pilot would decline to explain in detail. They would have seen from the window an ambulance pulling up to the plane, but no paramedics would have entered the passenger compartment. It would have been puzzling.

The next day, it would have been Dawn who came running into the Council to show everyone the gruesome story in a local tabloid: the frozen corpse of a woman found in the landing gear of a plane. There would have been a photo, and it would have been Drusilla's face.

**Drusilla**

Drusilla was in Sao Paulo. Spike was not imagining things. She was stalking him in the city. She was lurking near the house at night; his nightmares about her were triggered by her actual presence and the faint psychic link that they share.

Drusilla was the one who had vamped Carlos; she had encouraged him to build his army of vampire children, although she had stayed well back in the shadows and most of the mini-vamps had been unaware of her.

When Spike and Xander left Sao Paulo, she would have stowed away on the landing gear. When she thawed out after arrival, she would have walked out of the morgue. And then, not long before Dawn spotted her picture in the paper, Dru would have tracked down Spike, who would have been alone—and she would have kidnapped him.

When Spike disappeared right after it was discovered that Dru was in town, everyone would have assumed correctly that she had him. Xander would have totally freaked out, but Giles would have been on hand to cast a locator spell and Buffy would have been ready to knock down any necessary doors, stake in hand.

Meanwhile, a very awkward what-if conversation would have taken place: what if Drusilla re-vamps Spike? Xander would have insisted, emphatically, that in that case Spike should be safely contained but not harmed, and that if he didn't have a soul—and after all nobody was really sure whether he would or not, considering his unique circumstances—then Willow should re-ensoul him ASAP. Other parties, such as Giles, would have been rather skeptical about this plan. Xander would have secretly, meanwhile, started to think that a re-vamped, re-ensouled Spike might be better than a dying Spike. He would have voiced this thought to no one.

As it happens, after having a painful and revealing conversation with Dru about the current state of his life, Spike would have managed to stake her with a pencil. When Buffy burst through the door, he would have been kneeling in the dust, tears in his eyes.

Later, after some awkwardness between the two of them, Xander would have confessed to Spike the thoughts he'd had about the merits of re-vamping. Spike would have been horrified, initially, and there would have been a giant fight. But later, having had the chance to think about it (and maybe after talking it over with Buffy, or perhaps Illyria, or maybe both of them) Spike would have come to realize that Xander must be feeling very lost and scared and desperate indeed, to have thought such a thing. And finally Spike would have realized that Xander still needed him— _really_ needed him. And so Spike would have agreed to seek treatment for his leukemia after all. To fight, one more time. To _not_ go gently into that good night.

And that would have been the end of that story.

There would have been one more story.


	16. This Would Have Been A Whole Other Story

**The Truth about the Shanshu**

This story would have picked up several months later—maybe half a year. It would have started with a small, sad party. Spike would be just home from the hospital, and the party would have been for him, but it soon would have become clear that the context was that Spike was dying. The treatment hadn't worked, and the side-effects and complications had come close to killing him, and the time had come to stop. He would be in a relatively good state for the moment, but there would be the understanding that he had, at most, a few months left. Xander would have been discussing the plans for palliative care with Willow and Oz, quietly, in a corner of the room. Xander would have been wishing he could go back to being a guy who didn't know what palliative care was.

Angel would have been conspicuously absent from the party. Dawn would have wondered out loud where he was. It would have been revealed to the reader that Spike and Angel had come to some kind of truce in recent weeks. Spike, facing the end of his life, was ready to be forgiving and forgiven.

Then Angel would have arrived after all—with an uninvited guest held firmly by the arm. Eve, last seen fleeing Wolfram & Hart the night it all fell apart. Angel would have tracked her down after seeing her on TV in the background of some glitzy charity ball (Angel watching TV alone, awake late at night, brooding).

The mood of the party would have shifted immediately, because Eve, it would be revealed, knows something about what happened to Spike.

Eve, flustered and scared and angry, would have practically spat it out. There had been a plan. It had been Lindsey's plan. It had been a plan to destroy Angel, and Lindsey had brought it to the Circle of the Black Thorn. They had taken his plan but discarded him. Eve would still have been furious about this.

The plan was inspired by Angel's obsession with the Shanshu, and by Lindsey's participation in the resurrection of Darla. Lindsey knew how to do the spell. He told the Circle about it, and he told Eve too. The plan was to use the spell to resurrect Spike, the other vampire-with-a-soul, as a human, and let Angel conclude that Spike had been the subject of the Shanshu prophecy all along. This, it was thought, would be a terrible blow to Angel.

At this point in Eve's explanation, Spike and Angel would have looked at each other with matching expressions of horror. "So, wait," Spike would have said then, "the reason I'm back on this earth is _actually_ just to piss off Angel? Well, bugger me." And then he would have laughed and laughed.

Willow, meanwhile, would have stepped up to say that she knew the spell that Eve was talking about. She had researched resurrection spells extensively a few years ago (guilty look in Buffy's direction). The spell that had been used on Darla and Spike would only work on a being whose body had been completely destroyed—as by a thorough cremation, or the dusting of a vampire. If the spell was cast while the body was still intact, it would maintain itself, inert, in a sort of mystical holding pattern until the body was actually destroyed. If the Circle of the Black Thorn had cast the spell around the same time they got Angel to sign away his Shanshu, then it had been in a holding pattern for days before Spike got dusted in the fight with the dragon. The spell wasn't meant to work that way. There would be signal degradation.

Put simply, Spike had come back wrong because he'd been the victim of a botched resurrection spell.

Unfortunately, knowing what went wrong isn't the same thing as being able to fix it. The cancer had a mystical cause but it wasn't mystical cancer, and Willow would have told Spike, with regret, that she couldn't fix it with a spell. Xander would have pointed out that she had once magically healed a gunshot wound, and Willow would have explained that that had actually been a whole lot simpler than cancer, not to mention she'd been totally hopped up on dark magic at the time, to world-destroying levels.

In conclusion: Spike was still going to die.

 

**The Problem in Borneo**

You probably don't remember, but back in chapter one of That Good Night, when Buffy and Xander were catching up on news, Buffy said "Looks like we might have a problem next fall in Borneo, but Angel's on it."

Now that problem was finally going to hit the crisis point. Angel would have called an emergency session of the new Council. Even Spike would have been there, perhaps in a wheelchair. Angel would have explained what he had discovered: this was one of the loose ends left behind by the departure of Wolfram & Hart. In a cave deep in the jungle of Borneo, there is some kind of monster. Every thirteen years, on the day of the fall equinox, this monster requires a human sacrifice. Wolfram & Hart have been providing said sacrifice, every thirteen years on the dot, for as far back as their records go—which is actually farther back than the historical invention of writing. They sent in murderers, torturers, sociopaths, lawyers. Each one walked into the cave—generally under duress—and no one ever walked out. Wolfram & Hart's records, as related by one surviving clerk, warn that if the sacrifice is ever missed, the monster will leave the cave and Apocalypse will follow.

At the time of this meeting, the autumn equinox would be two weeks away.

Possibilities for slaying the monster would have been discussed, but a lack of specific information about the monster would have hampered the planning. Illyria, wandering into the boardroom to have a word with the potted ferns, would have suggested that the monster may actually be one of the elder gods, one who never made it into the Deeper Well. If that's the case, then slaying is really not an option.

Finally, Spike—who would have been rather quiet up to this point—would have spoken up and said that he was willing to be the sacrifice. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it would buy them thirteen years to come up with something better.

Xander, needless to say, would not have been in favour of this plan. Nobody else would really have hopped right on board either. Spike would have made a pretty convincing case, though—he's going to die very soon anyway, and he'd rather have it matter.

Buffy would have supported him in the end. She sacrificed herself to save the world once, too.

For lack of any better ideas, Spike's offer would have been accepted. He would have set off for Borneo with Xander and Buffy at his side. The journey would have been harrowing, especially the last twenty miles through trackless jungle, considering Spike's state and what waited for him at the end.

They would have found the cave. A human-sized figure would have emerged: hunched over, wearing a mossy robe, face hidden by its folds. It would have hissed a few words in an ancient demon language, but everyone would have understood them as though they were in English: "Identify the sacrifissse," it would have said.

Spike would have taken a moment to kiss Xander good-bye, a moment to bury his fingers in Xander's hair and hold him tight, and then he would have given Buffy a hug and whispered "Take care of him for me," and he would have followed the figure into the cave.

Buffy and Xander would have tried to follow, but they would have been repelled by an invisible barrier.

After a long and steep descent, the figure would have stopped, turned towards Spike, lowered its hood. The cave would have been strangely bright, with glossy glimmering walls that curved inwards rather than out. The face of the guide would have been creepy in a Bringer sort of way, eyes similarly sewn shut, but not actually a Bringer. Something similar. A minion of the elder god.

The walls of the cave would have shifted slightly, and a portal would have yawned open, bottom-to-top. Through the portal Spike would have glimpsed brightness, blue sky, green grass. Supersaturated colors. But taking in the _shape_ of the portal, and the two smooth pointy stalactites hanging from its upper lip, Spike would swiftly have recognized it as the mouth of a giant serpent; the walls of the cave were its coiled body, which Spike and the guide had passed over and climbed down to arrive here, in the middle.

Spike would have commented that as far as being eaten by a giant snake went, this didn't look like it would be so bad.

The minion would have agreed. The minion would have promised Spike that when he entered the mouth of the serpentine god, he would pass into Paradise.

Spike, who after all has been around the block a few times, would then have asked just what would happen if he _didn't_ go in there.

Rather than answering, the minion would have said with great confidence that of _course_ Spike would go in. The serpent could smell the deaths on Spike—more deaths than anyone the Wolf, Ram and Hart had sent in the past thousand years. Of course Spike would enter the serpent's mouth and pass into the paradise beyond.

Spike would have insisted: what would happen if he _didn't_?

The minion would have explained—sounding just a mite cranky now in its creepy hissing demon tongue and its telepathic English—that according to the terms of the agreement between the gods of the Primordium and the Wolf, Ram & Hart, if a timely willing sacrifice was not provided then the serpent god would cease providing dark energy to fuel the ongoing apocalypse, and would depart immediately from this plane of existence. And as for Spike, he would just have to _go back_ out into the world.

Spike would have noticed that the word for "go back," in this sibilant demon tongue, was _shanshu_.

And Spike would have begun to laugh.

The minion would have gotten rather irate at this point. The minion would have pointed out that this was a one-time-only offer. The minion would then have pointed a gnarled, greenish finger at Spike and hissed "Ssssee for yoursssself."

The cave would have vanished. Spike's own body would have vanished. There would have been nothing but soft white light and a sense of peace. Wholeness. No pain.

And then Spike would have crashed back into himself, on his knees on the rough damp stone, in his weak and hurting body, trying not to vomit.

And he would have thought back to the white light, the memory of which would have already been fading, and he would have remembered Buffy talking about _remembering_ remembering Heaven.

"Or," the minion would have gone on, "would you choossse a lifffe of sssorrow?"

Again the minion would have pointed at Spike, and again he would have fallen into a vision—but this time it would have been more like flashes of those dreams that you have the night before a day that you're anxious about. Running for a bus, and missing it. Getting caught in the rain. Losing a button, seeing it roll away and down a sewer grate. And then: Buffy, collapsing under the fangs of a vampire. Dawn, crushed by falling rocks. Illyria, screaming as she is consumed by ten thousand glittering scarab beetles. Drusilla turning to dust. Angel on fire. Xander ... old. Lying in a hospital bed. His hair gone thin and white, his one eye clouded over, his skin wrinkled and loose. Lifting a shaking hand toward Spike, then letting it fall. The sigh of a last breath, and then stillness.

Once again Spike would have felt the cave floor under his hands and knees.

"Choossse, murderer," the minion would have said. "Pain, or Paradissse."

"That last show you put on for me," Spike would have croaked. "Might have been some possible futures in there, but it sure wasn't my real one. Dru's already gone, and I'd never live long enough to see the rest. Tell your giant snake-god-thing it can sod off. I'm crawling on out of here."

The minion would have turned to the mouth of the snake and bowed, shaking. "He is dying, massster," the minion would have said. "He doesss not fear the future, for he hasss none."

The coils of the giant snake would have shifted, slightly, and then all the air in the cave would have seemed to contract suddenly and then expand. Spike would have gasped.

The nausea would have been gone. His body would have felt strong, energized. His breath would have come easily, unlaboured. The deep, constant pain would have been just ... gone. Spike would have looked up in confusion, and the minion and the mouth/portal would have appeared blurry—until he took off his glasses, at which point his vision would have been crisp and clear.

"Now," the minion would have said, "you might live sssixty years. Will you ssstill refussse to walk ten ssstepsss into Paradissse?"

"It bloody _healed_ me!" Spike would have exclaimed, to nobody in particular, and then almost fallen over with the force of his laughter.

"CHOOSSSE!" the minion would have demanded, furious now, and it would have jabbed its finger at Spike one more time.

The soft white light. Floating. Stillness, wholeness, peace.

The cave again. Spike wouldn't have been laughing anymore. Compared to the flash of heaven—if that's what it was supposed to be—even his newly-healed body would have felt heavy, awkward, dull.

And he would have considered it. For a few seconds, he really would have. To leave behind a hundred and forty-odd years of life and unlife, most of those spent doing unspeakably terrible things—to simply step into the light, and apparently let the world go on exactly as it had been anyway.

And then he would have thought of Xander in the vision. Xander, so many years in the future, his face deeply lined and his hair gone to white. And Spike would have realized that his deepest wish was to live those years by Xander's side.

"Sorry," Spike would have said to the snake. "I choose life."

"My massster will depart!" the minion would have screamed. "The demonic energiesss will fade in Her absenssse! The vampiresss' numbers will ssslowly diminish! The contractsss of the damned will be undone! The Wolf, Ram and Hart will loossse their grip on this world! They will eat ashes!"

"Forgot to tell you earlier," Spike would have said. "Earth's already under new management."

At that, the minion would have puffed itself up, shaking with indignity, and thrown Spike an incongruous but keenly felt talk-to-the-hand gesture. It would have stalked away, straight into the mouth/portal. It would have been visible through the portal for a few moments longer, walking away on the soft green grass. And then, in a movement that probably would have involved more than three spatial dimensions and which would have given Spike a bit of a headache just to see, the great snake-god would have swallowed itself and disappeared.

With the snake gone, Spike would have been at the bottom of a pitch-black pit, but luckily the sides wouldn't have been too steep, and with his newly-recovered strength it wouldn't have been too hard for him to climb back out. He would have emerged from the cave less than half an hour after he'd gone in. Xander and Buffy would still have been near the entrance, sitting on a flat rock, Xander's head on Buffy's shoulder, tears on both their faces. They would have stood up in shock upon seeing Spike.

"What happened in there?" Buffy would have asked as Xander dashed forward and embraced Spike.

"Well," Spike would have replied, hugging Xander back, "Far as I understand it, this time I saved the world by _not_ dying."

And then, to the extent that such a thing is possible in this world, they would have lived happily ever after.

***

And that's how the story would have ended. If I'd ever written it.


End file.
